Confessions of a School Party Mom Flunkie

There are a lot of things about parenting that no one tells you at the baby shower. All those sweet little index cards that experienced mothers and well-meaning aunties write out full of helpful parenting hints contain things like "You can't spoil babies; kiss them more than you think is healthy!" and "Always carry a diaper in the glove box of your car. Trust me on this one." are all good and fine, but most of them deal with "baby" or "toddler" situations.  Almost no one (including the good Dr. James Dobson) writes about perplexing issues involving grade school age (5-12) children.

I'm not talking about what to do if they contract chicken pox or how to handle "The Talk".  There ARE books about that. What really kills some of us are things like school parties and sports events.

Now, I'm certain there are Very Organized and Creative Mothers who look forward to such things. It gives them an opportunity to showcase their talents. They're the ones who actually have real Easter baskets for their kids to put the plastic eggs in, instead of plastic grocery bags hastily borrowed from the teacher. Their party treats bring to mind a Martha Stewart magazine cover, with olives minutely sliced into spider legs on top of perfectly peeled deviled eggs. They show up at basketball games with personalized, superbly FAN-tastic ensembles and pull out little handlettered banners with all their kids' teammates names and numbers on there in gold.

If this is you, bless your heart, you'd probably better just stop reading the Chronicles here and go amuse yourself on the Pinterest website.



I THOUGHT I could be one of those mothers. (In retrospect, I have no idea why because nothing in my past would suggest or even hint at this sort of tendency...)

And I probably could try a little harder.

It would help if I could ever nail down the date and times of events.
I DO try!
I read the school emails and newsletters and Facebook posts with my planner open, pen in hand, writing down everything important as soon as I encounter it. But I always miss the hidden clues that the other mothers glean from the same documents....things like, "And all the kids will wear pajamas that day" or "Please send one ingredient for Earth Day tacos."  I end up writing down the right date/wrong time, or vice-versa.  Or they change the date on something and I miss that in the subsequent email.

I honestly have stood in front of the cupboard and thought these things, folks:

"I suppose I can't stuff plastic eggs with Vienna sausages, cocktail onions, or plain old marshmallows..."

"I probably can't take any of those for school treats, either..."

"What is the world record time for Jello set up?"

"Game....I'm responsible for a GAME?!?!?!  Like, Sort the Lucky Charms...that might work."
"But not for Halloween."
"Dang."


I'm telling you.
It's BRUTAL.

The older the kids get the less pressure there is on the school front, thank goodness, but the sports mom thing kicks in then. They have practices at specific times in specific places and need important things like real honest-to-goodness basketball shoes. It turns out, most sports also require sports physicals from genuine doctors, not just notes from the parent saying "She's up to date on her shots and hasn't had anything contagious for a couple weeks now."

At games, the parents wear team colors and have cash for concessions.
SERIOUSLY!
They don't just show up showered, with their last check in their pocket (because they forgot to order new ones two weeks ago).  And they show up at the right gymnasium or field. They show up on the appointed day to take their turn selling concessions. In team colors. WITH CASH.
Apparently, this is no biggie for most people of the world...


Today is the school Easter egg hunt.
We miraculously had both plastic eggs and candy, so my cherubs boarded the bus somewhat prepared. But now I have to come up with treats of some sort, and it's not looking promising.

Frozen corn...
Two not-too-brown bananas...
Coffee beans...

*sigh*

No Horses on the Place

Dear Sara Hagedorn C.,

(And all readers of the Chronicles, but Sara's the one who scolded...)

When I married the Farmer, it was made abundantly and emphatically clear that there would be NO HORSES ON THE PLACE.  It was a big point, because I grew up riding and my dad still uses horses every day on his place, and the family I married into were not horse-y at all. In fact, horses were looked on as a waste of time, feed, and an endless moneypit; four wheelers were much more efficient and besides, they don't scare the cows. I do respect that. Our pastures here at Lang's Fork are very large and easily covered on a four wheeler. Where I grew up, wheelers would be pointless as the country is much tougher, the hills not easy but mean, rough gumbo.  There's a place for everything.

And then we had Maggie. 

Now, I'm not overstating the thing when I say that little girls are born with a horse-compass. Early in their lives, almost all of them are drawn to horses.  They read horse books (thank you Marguerite Henry for so many). Their walls are covered with pictures from calendars and magazines of horses. One will find My Little Pony growing into Breyer toy horses as they grow. But at some point will come the inevitable question....

You know what it is, don't you?

"Can I have a horse?"

In our case, I'm happy to say it was because she spent happy times horseback at Cowboy PopPop's, from the time she was three months old, really. My dad and Grammy Karen have made a point of taking the time to get all their grandkids on horses as early and often as possible. So besides the "nature" of genetic horse-love, there was also the "nurture". 

When Maggie asked us, we told her that if she wanted a horse she'd have to earn the money and buy it herself. This was going to take some time and a lot of work on her part. By the time she had earned enough for a horse, perhaps PopPops Vern would have retired to a nice little house in Miles City and wouldn't have heart palpitations over the whole deal. 

What we did NOT take into consideration, however, was how very determined and focused our daughter would be in this endeavor. 

From that point on, all her birthday and Christmas money went in a bright yellow Whitman's chocolate box decorated with horses in her drawer. When she won premium money at the county fair, into the box it went. She rode for a week to help her Cowboy PopPops and her wages were proudly deposited in the Horse Fund. Any spare bit of change, any quarters found on the street....into the box for her horse. She raised a bum calf, bought a heifer from the sale of it, sold the heifer when she was dry on the third year and had money from that for a horse.

Maggie would watch her brother spending his birthday money on LEGOs and candy and whatever else caught his fancy, but held tight to her purse strings with this goal of having her own horse someday. I'm getting a little teary as I type this because as I watched this for three years, I hope hope hoped it would not be in vain, that her persistent belief and work would not go unrewarded. 

So many dreams DO crash, you know.

So many things in life turn out to be disappointments and empty promises. 

I'm so very happy to write to you and tell you that her efforts did not go unrewarded. 

It turns out that my godson married a dear girl (okay, she's in her twenties but that's a girl to old people like me, right?) who is deeply involved in horses. She's a farrier and barrel-racer for goodness sake, and rode up the aisle in her wedding on her horse Boyfriend. 

We love her. 

She works for a woman who does hippotherapy which is NOT a rehab for chemically dependent hippos (you laugh, the world is a weird place nowadays, my friend) but a therapy with horses for those who are handicapped, veterans, traumatically injured in some way, children in struggling homes/settings. And through this work, she learned of a little 10 year old roan horse who needed a girl to love and care for. 

She knew we had just such a girl.

The owner had had CC from a colt, that she was green-broke but completely gentle, had never bucked in her life, and was in good shape except....

(There's always an "except", isn't there?)

Three years ago, she started seizing up when she was ridden more than five miles. Her muscles would grow tight and she was unable to get back home. This was quite inconvenient on a working ranch, as you might imagine, so she was turned out to pasture because the owner (bless her heart) had a toddler and a baby, a job in town, a ranching husband, and no time to baby a horse along even though she loved her dearly. She didn't want to send the mare to the canners but she couldn't sell her to anyone who would work her hard. And her price was $400. 

Maggie's calf money was in the bank, but her birthday/wages/premium money was in the Whitman's chocolate box. In three years she'd taken only $20 out of that box and her ready cash was $360. 

$360 of saving and working and sacrifice for her dream. 

Money in the back to support it.

It gives me GREAT pleasure and pride to introduce to you Maggie's horse CC's Apache Pride. (Yes, she's a papered quarterhorse.) Maggie calls her Pepper.

(This is before Maggie and my godson's wife went over her with brushes, combs and such, so she looks a little tough. Not a high maintenance girl at all.)

Pepper is a very calm, good-natured horse when she's around people, but apparently quite overbearing and bossy with other horses. Think "oldest sister who has to have it her way all the time". Maggie and I SO get that. We're not proud of it, but we get it.  

We are keeping her at Destanie and Jason's house (my godson and his wife) for a couple months until we get a good place fenced off next to our house for her, so essentially she's NOT on the place.  We haven't really broken any rules yet. Destanie and Maggie work with her together and D has been working with her when we aren't there to try to get her into shape.  

We think Pepper has a condition called Polysaccharide Storage Myopathy, which is basically a genetic thing that runs through quarterhorses and draft horses which makes them sensitive to starch and sugars in their diets and requires daily exercise to keep them limber, as well as very clean diets and vitamin supplements. We're working on figuring out how best to feed and work her, but other than that she's a darling horse who craves human company.

I haven't gotten many pictures of Maggie and Pepper because I babysit my (perfect) grand god-son the little Toot while Maggie and Destanie work with her. I'll put some of the pictures I DO have here in the post.

I've been hesitant to write this post, even though it's a joyous event in OUR house, because I didn't want it to seem as though we were rubbing it in, flaunting the breaking of the cardinal rule. It is SO not that way.

I'm sharing this story because one of my best friends is so excited about this life step for Maggie.

So, Sara, this is for you.

I know you've been checking and are beside yourself with happy anticipation for this post.

Thank you for waiting and nudging when you couldn't help yourself any more!

Now, more Pepper!

This is the first moment they met.

I want to tell you that it took about 30 hours for Maggie to come to the realization that Pepper was HER HORSE.

She didn't have to give her back, share her with 10 cousins, not see her for months....this precious horse was the fruition of her efforts and hard work, this horse was HERS. (You'll note the halter. We realized we didn't have ANY tack when the Farmer went to town to pick Pepper up, so he said he'd buy one. Maggie immediately said, "The cheapest one, Dad. Don't buy anything expensive.")

They look like sisters, don't they?
Pepper was so calm for being in a new place.  Destanie checked all her feet and looked at her teeth without any objection from Pepper. This was very good, considering Pepper had been out to pasture for three years.

Here you go, girlfriend; here's your horse!

They're pretty together, aren't they?

My two favorite boys in all the world, Angus and little Toot! They were very good sports about the whole deal.

A little action while the silly girls made goo-goo eyes at a HORSE....

So there it is.

The story of how a little girl earned her horse, how prayers were answered, how lives change as we grow and have children of our own.

(Cowboy PopPops is VERY happy about the whole mess, PopPops Vern much less so. But you know what? That's alright. This IS life. Even if Maggie only has her horse for a couple years, the lesson of working hard and saving for what you want will stay with her. The memory and story of buying her first horse will be the foundation for her parenting wisdom for her OWN children. It's not just about getting Pepper. There are bigger, more lasting "morals" that come from this. And THAT'S what I'm really happy about.)

(Although, I have to tell you....it's so good to smell horse on our clothes and hands, to have the luxury of one of our own.)

With sincere apologies for the delay of the story, Sara,

The Farmer's Wife

Spread The Love

Do you remember my frienemy Willa McGillicuddy? 

She's been going through a challenging time lately so I mailed her a little package containing an extra copy of War and Peace that I had mistakenly bought and a bottle of Montana wine, among other things. (Because, you know....nothing says "Cheer up, syrup!" like War and Peace.)

Before I sealed and posted it, there was a liberal sprinkling of teeny foil hearts that I keep on hand for such occasions. 

WELL.

The package made it to its destination in record time and from the moment she opened it, itty-bitty little hearts started planting themselves like dandelion seeds everywhere. As Willa finds them, she takes a photo and sends it to me.  So far, they've been recorded in bed sheets, on the bottom of a foot, on her shoulder at work,  and in the DRIVEWAY for goodness sake! She may be finding them elsewhere but these are the recordable sightings. 

Both of us are delighted! And who wouldn't be?! There's a reminder of being dearly loved that pops up at unexpected times and shines as hard as it possibly can! Willa knows she's loved and I know she knows she's loved. How beautiful...

This brings me to the deep meaningful portion of the post.

Come ON. 

You saw it coming.

Even so....keep reading....

In the dark, cold days of winter it's pretty easy to isolate oneself, to begin thinking dark thoughts, to ferment the ugly ideas that one is not significant or worth being loved. The frigid weather seems to freeze the spirit, too. Blessings are lost as well as perspective. 

Does it not feel as though it will be January forever? That June is a figment of your imagination? 

My frienemy, Willa, lives in Florida so she doesn't really get the cold, dark, lonely thing but she DOES get a winter of the spirit. We all do, whether we wish to admit it or not. And it's then that we need to look for the little foil hearts, the wee shining manifestations of love that are with us always, whether we know it or not.  

Love is not the big showy spectacle that society and media flashes in our faces.

It's the little shiny things we step on and don't notice, that we sweep off our days and never think twice about. 

How much love are we missing? 

Daily!

Minute to minute, really.

Willa can't help but think about it. It keep sparkling in her life, on her very being, and in her path when she goes to get the mail or on her desk when she works.

I'm thinking more about it too.

I do love Willa and I pray for her daily, but I didn't realize the impact for both of us. 

Kenny Chesney sings a Jamaican style song that says this in the lyrics:

"We've got to spread the love, spread the love, all over the world...

All God's people got to spread the love, spread the love, all over the world..."

Let's do that.

Even if it's little foil hearts.

The Whole Turkey

I'm reading an oddly wonderful children's book called The Doldrums which really and truly defies any description other than to say if you're feeling a bit trapped by circumstance or bogged down with routine, this book will give you hope and whimsical inspiration.

Yesterday morning I read a really good piece of writing in it that I wanted to put someplace I wouldn't lose it. (This is a library book and as nice as the MC librarians are to me, they still have a hard time when I turn down corners on pages or underline in pencil and comment in the margin on the things that strike me. Now you know why I own so many books...they ALL strike me, and I can't afford library binding prices to replace the ones I borrow.)

The Chronicles are as good a place as any to put this passage and besides, now I can share this funny odd thought.

"If someone tells you they love turkey smothered with cranberry sauce, that they love it more than anything else in the world; you might spend the day roasting that someone a turkey and smothering it with cranberry sauce. If that same someone then takes on little bite and says, "That'll be all, thank you," you'll likely go red in the face and hurl both these turkeys out the nearest window because clearly, this person never loved turkey smothered with cranberry sauce in the first place.

Little bites are never enough when you love something. When you love something, you want it all.  That's how it works. And that's how it was for Archer. Archer didn't want a little taste of adventure with a side of leftover discoveries. Archer wanted the whole turkey and he wanted it stuffed with enough salts and spices to turn his taste buds into sparklers. Needless to say, it was a tall order for a boy who wore a size-small blazer."

Little bites are never enough.

There's a section a few pages later about dreamers and doers, and I'm half tempted to share THAT with you too, but part of me wants you to hustle around, find the book at your library, and discover these little treasures for yourself.

If you DO, ask the librarians for The Doldrums by Nicholas Gannon. Even if you just get it and look at the pictures, it will be worth your time.
But don't be surprised to see eraser marks under the good parts...

Here's the cover:

Little Files

This morning I found myself cutting a Lipton tea box into neat rectangular pieces that would fit nicely in a shirt pocket or clip to a pickup truck visor. I almost always cut them up, because if I were to just throw the boxes away, my Gramps would probably smite me from heaven for wasting such beautiful note board.

Gramps would cut up any good, light piece of cardboard...from tea boxes (which I best remember) or gift boxes or boxes parts came in....because it held up better than paper for all the notes and numbers he kept in his pocket.  I think all ranchers must, even now when we can type notes into our cell phones. I haven't done this but I'm fairly certain that in Cohagen you could walk up to almost any rancher, ask what was in his shirt pocket (an informal, nonscientific survey) and around 85% would have among other things a chunk of light cardboard with numbers or notes on it. The other 15% would be on their way to town, had to change shirts, and now that you pointed it out, their essential pocket files would be in their work shirt at home.....curses!

When you need a list of cow numbers for sorting certain ones out of the bunch (we use the word "bunch" not "herd"), it's perfect; no ripping or going to pieces when it gets wet.  In the pickup, it keeps calf numbers, feed schedules, bale counts, parts needed, windmill notes, salt'n'minral trough placement and also, maybe, the phone number they need for the hay grinder guy that they always MEAN to put in their phone's memory but never really have the time to do so.

They're usually tucked in the pocket near the little book the banker or insurance person gives them which holds the entire intelligence of the operation in manure and oil spotted pages.  In the house will be a filing cabinet with "official" papers but if you want to know about the blood and gears of the place, it's in the rancher's pocket.

Every once in a while I go through my work coat pockets and find these little cardboard files, too; usually from when we sorted cows or I helped put out pairs. Often there will be an extra 5/8 inch needle with it...just in case the other needle breaks when I'm giving shots. It always makes me smile. I think about my kids in the age of technology...will they break with tradition, or will they too cut up tea and parts boxes?
I hope so.
Gramps is watching.

:)

Yee-haw!

My sister is going to a George Strait concert in Las Vegas in April.
(For those who might not understand what a big deal this is to some people, it's like going to see the Pope of Country Music. REAL country music, not that Luke Bryant sh...tuff.)

A true girl to the core, she's already obsessing over what to wear.
(Of course, she obsesses over everything which is one of the things I love about her. The price of eggs, who was the old lady with cat eye glasses in the VFW kitchen 30 years ago, why God allows suffering....these all get equal obsessing time.  I've decided it's a very nice balance to my "Who knows? Or cares?" approach to life.)

Anyway.
The tricky thing about a "country" concert is how western to go with the ensemble.  Boots are a given, no-brainer, moving on to bigger stuff sort of component so that was easy.  But what else? We decided to go to Pinterest, the idea hole of the internet, and take a look at options.

Well, let me tell you, "western wear" is...
WHO WEARS THIS STUFF???

Certainly not women in the west! First of all, we'd have to sell 3 cows at last year's record market high price to be able to afford one stinkin' outfit. Who ARE these women and where are they getting their money?? Are they selling drugs and wearing these clothes as a costume to evade the law? Have they won the Publisher's Clearing House sweepstakes?

Another thing I feel absolutely compelled to point out is the sincere ridiculousness of the cut and embellishment. If one lives in Eastern Montana, say, it's necessary for your physical survival (not fashion, but true survival) that there is more than 12 square inches of fabric in your skirt or shorts. Same for your top. OR inversely, you will also die if you wear that much fringe because the wind will whip it around your body, tangling you up to the point of "Well, she's just gonna have to be tube fed and we don't have time for that...".  All the stuff is dry clean only and my dears, in the true west, most of us live a conservative 100 miles away from the nearest dry cleaner.  It's not gonna happen. Especially when you can get manure on your clothes walking carefully from the car to your house.
I'm not even going to address the "cowboy hats". You'll just have to go look for yourself.

I understand this sort of western fashion is for dress-up occasions and that sort of thing, but my concern is this: is the rest of the world looking at this and thinking we Montana women artfully drape our turquoise/silver/leather/silk be-robed selves over rustic fenceposts, looking dreamily off into the great wild western sky?

(We saw a few things that might be good ideas, but still have several months to work out the details. I'll keep you posted.)

Pardon my French...

Every year for the last ten years AT LEAST, I've been trying to learn the French language.  I have an audio cd course, tried several free language education websites, subscribed to France magazine....

And I haven't made any measurable progress, to speak of.

Part of the reason is the way the lessons are set up. 

(I understand the creators of the courses are trying for high success/high retention, but...)

One of the first words you learn is "cat" (chat). Truly. In almost every course that I've started, chat is right up there in the first 10 vocabulary lessons.  

Now, there are a lot of words I can think of that should take higher priority in my opinion. 

"Bathroom" being one of them. (If EVER you needed a high success/high retention word to leap to mind in a situation where French is the primary language, I would think this would be one of the biggies.)

"Police", "thank you", "help", "nice shoes", "more wine, please"....any of these would be more useful right away. 

I'm using an application on my phone right now and it's been very good in leading me along, keeping my interest and success high.  But it, too, has this crazy hierarchy of words I need to know right away!

I'm on Level 6, which means I have a French proficiency of approximately 1% I was informed today. This is very good news. 

I can, as of today, discuss sharks eating black chickens with anyone should the topic arise in conversation. (Les requins manges des poules noire!) I have the linguistic skills to note in passing that the woman has a red dress. (La femme a robe rouge...).  I would be able to ask an elephant about the sugar. (I'm SERIOUS. Apparently, the French converse a disproportionate amount of time about things that are black and red, are quite concerned with elephants, sharks, and cats, AND feel the need to comment on one's dress at any given moment.)

I'm one who tries to figure out meaning in context, but these lessons are killing me.  Today, I had to translate the French sentence "The men ate a whale." I knew all the words, but kept second guessing the word for "whale" because the sentence didn't make any sense at all the way I was reading it.  It turns out, that doesn't really matter when you're speaking French....or perhaps just learning it.  There was also a sentence about the women having cold soup, a chicken and a mouse eating a strawberry, and the sandwich being red. 

I'm hoping there will be a section soon that teaches me to hail a whale's red cab, ask where the black bathroom for chickens is, and how to order wine for la petite chat.  

You know, really useful things.

(All humor aside, I really am making good progress with the application Duolingo. I do 20 minutes a day, generally at the bus stop in the afternoon waiting for the kids or right before lunch. Any learning is good and it's a fun break from War and Peace which I'm happy to say has a bookmark between pages 121-122. Only 1100 pages to go!)

Time to Engage!

Have you heard of the "new" motivational trend that encourages people to choose a meaningful word, just one word, for the whole year? The idea behind it is that if you focus on one word and get your life centered around that rather than a bunch of goals, the goals will naturally fall into place and you'll end up more like that word.

Or something.



I've had my "word of the year" for quite a few years, well before the idea became popular.  It's not that I'm innovative or cutting edge or ahead of the trend or anything, it's just that one word every year seemed to be popping up all over the place in my life so I'd embrace it and live it. One year it was "joy", another year "focus" (that was a toughie), last year it was "clean"....to clean up my brain, my life, my house, etc.  (Yes. I'm aware that it didn't work as splendidly as I'd hoped last year...*sigh*)



This year's word is ENGAGE.

Part of the inspiration for my choice was in the video I just shared with you. How many of us just get through the day, dealing with things, doing our tasks, but are not really, thoughtfully engaged with the people around us or what we're doing?  In the video, I wish I was Helen Parr, the mom, but I fear that most of the time I'm Bob, the dad.



"Engage" is a verb.

And verbs mean action.



This year, I want to really be engaged with the kids when they're telling me stories or ideas they have instead of just half listening, thinking of other things besides, say, how many LEGO clones died in the battle with the LEGO syths. (This is HARD. Have you ever listened to a nine year old tell a 20 minute story about LEGOs? And pay attention the whole way through?)

This year, I want to appreciate the feel of the dough I'm kneading instead of just trying to get the bread made and in the pan.

This year I want to spend more time with dirty hands, grass stained knees, and bug spray cologne.

This year I want to shut the cell phone off when my family gets home and not turn it back on until they're on the bus or out the door for work.



It's time to engage!

Resolutions

The new year is fresh and full of promise, isn't it? Pages and pages of calendar, waiting to be filled.

Everyone is broke, so they go on strict budgets in the name of "my financial resolution".

Everyone is chubby from Christmas cookies and prime rib for 20 days, so they go on strict diet and exercise programs in the name of "my fitness resolution".

Everyone has new stuff that doesn't fit where the old stuff already is, so they go through closets and drawers in the name of "my organizational resolution". 

I'd like to think I've got unique goals for 2016 but when I really get down to it, I'm "everyone".  

The first week of January....

man, I'm a MUCH better version of myself. 

For example:

I'm trying to be more efficient with the groceries I have and use everything down to the last crumb. Innovative leftovers. 

Interesting combinations of pieces and parts of the ghost of meals past.

"We don't need to go to the grocery store! Why, I have carrots, and red-beans-n-rice, and some cotto salami lunchmeat right here.  It'll be a CASSEROLE."

(I remember my mom doing this sort of thing. We knew that if dinner was a casserole, it was probably going to be composed of previously "used" food, and we'd frantically do a mental rundown of what all we'd been served for meals the prior two days.) Casseroles are suspect dishes...

Yesterday I saw three pears and half a bag of cranberries languishing in my refrigerator, looking like they might get beyond the point of use-ability, so I thought, "Pear sauce! It'll be like apple sauce!" 

Very efficient.

Waste not, want not.

And I felt quite smart and resourceful.

So, I whipped around, got the breakfast dishes put away, the kids' lunches made, a load of laundry in, and peeled those pears right up to boil with their pals the cranberries. (This all happened before 7:30 a.m. because as you know, in the first week of January anything is possible, even energetic housekeeping at ungodly hours.) 

They bubbled and burbled along in their apple juice bath until the cranberries started popping, indicating the proper amount of "done-ness". 

Now, here's where things got a little ugly.

I thought about pushing them through a strainer to eliminate the cranberry skins but I'm sure I'd just read where the skins of all fruits and vegetables are where the most nutrients are. (Because it's January and I have "healthy resolutions", I'm reading those sorts of articles. I'm sure you are too.) I virtuously decided that we were going to get all the vitamins we could out of this efficient use of aging fruit, so I pulled out the blender. 

(Some of you know how this is going to end. Don't spoil it for the rest of the readers...)

Now, we're getting down to the wire on bus time, but I'm determined to get this project wrapped up so I can do the dishes up from it so I can go on with my list of goals (including reading War and Peace, and taking 20 minutes of French daily). (I'm NOT KIDDING.)

Rather than do a ladle-ful of the boiling hot mixture, I poured the whole dang thing into the glass container, replaced the lid, put it on the base and hit the little "SLOW" button. 

I'm the one who needs a "SLOW" label. (SLOW DOWN. THINK ABOUT IT.)

The blender exploded.

Not the motor, but the steam from the boiling hot pear-berries blew the lid sky high and there was sticky red, grainy fruit slop everywhere. 

You know how there's a point in every project where you say to yourself, "You really should just give this one up, dearie.  Just walk away and call it a day..." 

I think about that point much later in time, wishing I had the courage and intelligence to listen to myself, but no...I never do.

This would have been that point.

But I'm no quitter.

I took the glass container, poured most of the almost boiling fruit back in the saucepan, then started the blending process again.  Except THIS time, just as I hit "SLOW", the Farmer put his head in the door and asked a Very Important and Timely Question which (and this is not his fault...he had no idea of the drama and devastation unfolding in the kitchen) distracted me.  My grip on the top of the lid wasn't tight enough and it blew up again. 

You might think the saga ends here, and oh, how I wish it did...

Now the pears and berries are languishing in my refrigerator in a much needed Tupperware container. It's WORSE than if I'd just let them rot in peace, because I'm double cleaning the sticky which is taking valuable time away from my War and Peace goal, AND we're still not eating the nutrients.

Today I have to take lunch over for the men because they're working cows at a vague time, so I have a ham in the crockpot, twice baked potatoes ready to go in the fridge, a green salad, and....pear berry sauce!

The problem being that the reason we haven't yet eaten the pear berry sauce is because it's too runny. What would make a runny sauce thicker?

Hmmm.....

CORN STARCH. 

Nine a.m. found me again with my saucepan of bubbling, burbling pears and cranberries, trying to salvage the whole mess.  

I added corn syrup and a little salt in addition to the cornstarch.  It needed....something. 

As I stirred, I ran through flavors in my brain. What did it need? What could I add?

Lime zest!

As I was grating the lime zest into the rapidly thickening pear berry sauce, I realized there was no possible way I could explain this dish to my father-in-law who likes his food traditional and straightforward. No surprises. I could just see him getting the bowl of ambiguous pink sauce, frowning a little while trying to figure out what it might be, tasting it and not recognizing any of the flavors as things that normally go together. 

Much like we did with Mom's casseroles.

Now, as much as I'd love to continue with this blog post, I have lunch to deliver and I'm running behind on my French course, so it's "au revoir" for now.  

Happy 2016!

The Farmer's Wife Abroad {Food}

Ah, the food...

Bonaire can grow nothing, save goats and iguanas (both of which are edible...), so all the food on the island is imported. 

And imported = expensive. 

Especially when an island is importing the vast majority of their food products from the Netherlands. A lot of the produce comes from South and Central America, which saves a few miles, but other than that, the Netherlands.  

I kind of knew this, but I didn't KNOW this...does that make sense? 

I had read about the grocery stores and markets, even watched a couple videos taken by a tourist who was shopping in Van Den Tweel's in Kralendijk, but it didn't occur to me that the labels would all be in Dutch. I was more focused on staying within my grocery budget and still feeding everyone enough so that we weren't forced to kill and butcher a goat, say...

Since I don't really know any Dutch, this made grocery shopping quite slow.  I looked at the labels, thought about what the English equivilant of that word might be, examined the picture or product quite carefully once again, and put it in the cart.  Sometimes I hit it, sometimes I didn't.  

I wanted half & half for my coffee but all I could comprehend was "melk"...obviously "milk".  But the rest of the cartons gave me no clue as to their contents. And the smiling cows on them seemed to mock my ignorance...

I bought karnemelk. 

Who knows?! Karnemelk might be part milk with the other part being cream...oh, I hope, I hope...

NO.

Karnemelk is buttermilk. 

A terrible lesson in Dutch at 6 a.m. in my coffee. 

(I used it later in seafood fritters and it worked out neatly, so no waste.)

There was also a section of what appeared to be shelf-stable coffee creamers with happy Dutch people sipping hot beverages on the label. (And the label did NOT say karnemelk anywhere on it, so I thought "Who knows?! It might be creamer...oh, I hope, I hope")  

NO

The happy Dutch citizens had evaporated milk in their coffee. Not even sweetened condensed milk, but just plain old evaporated "melk".  Why were they so ecstatic about THAT? 

The fruit was amazing. 

It was tricky, though.  It LOOKED green, especially the pineapple and mangos.  It FELT green. It didn't smell like ripe fruit generally smells. But when I'd cut into it, it was perfectly ripe...if I let it sit on the counter for more than a day it would begin to be TOO ripe very quickly.  

Cheese....oh, God bless the Dutch and their happy cows who make happy cheese.

I have no idea what kinds I bought, but they were all good. (This is not surprising, since cheese is one of my favorite food groups.) 

I stayed within budget very well, so Thursday Ivan gave me extra cash and told me to get shrimp and steak for supper that night. I'd been shopping all week at three different supermarkets and knew the pickings were slim in the beef department and the shrimp looked a little old...what to do?  Warehouse Grocery (which was not a "warehouse grocery" like we're used to; Costco and Sam's Club...it was a regular old supermarket) had good steaks that day, but I was not paying for anything with a bone. With careful picking, I ended up with 3 loin cuts that ran $47/lb.  At Van Den Tweel's, I found some not so gross shrimp that was pre-garlic-ed for $34/lb and several pork skewers (at least I THINK they were pork skewers...or goat, but we're not going to split hairs now) for $30/lb.  When I returned with my haul and brought it into the villa, Ivan said, "You didn't get enough!" to which I pointed out the prices on the receipt and we agreed that everyone would have to fill in the gaps with rice and salad...

Merrill, the owner of the villa, had told me where I could go for fresh fish....catch of the day!....so I was determined to get my hands on some of that.  It was a rather strange connection as I had to call the front desk of a hotel, they'd put me in touch with the kitchen, we'd wrangle out a deal and I'd go home with whatever they caught that day. 

I called the Sand Dollar and sure enough, they said they had fish and to stop by the office to make the deal. 

Hmmm...

Well, it took me a little while to find the office because it was tucked way in the back of the resort, far from the entrance and parking lot. When I finally found it, I was hot and flustered and frankly, not in the mood to haggle over any old fish.  The front desk clerk listened to my story, picked up the phone and negotiated a deal with the kitchen for tuna steaks (enough for six) for $22.  When did I want to pick them up? Um....in an hour, maybe? No worries, the fish would be there in an hour. 

But, in true Bonairian spirit, the desk clerk (Mercedes- pronounced mar-SHAY-deez) said I could get it whenever...she was there all day, even over lunch when the sign said they were closed, and just swing by when I was finished marketing. I wanted to hug her. 

When I got the tuna back to the villa, I carefully unwrapped the newspaper and then the plastic wrap.

There were the most beautiful, huge pink chunks of tuna I'd ever seen....about an inch thick, mostly. It was almost intimidating, thinking of grilling such perfection! 

But I managed it...salt, pepper, lime juice...it grilled like a dream, and paired nicely with the fresh mango salsa I made that afternoon. 

I really wish my group had liked fish better, because I'd have been at the Sand Dollar every morning, chatting it up with Mercedes, picking up barracuda or what have you.  

Here's the supermarket I used most often. (I'm not ashamed to tell you...it's because as I went out the door, there were insanely yummy, fresh smoothies made of just blended fruit...no yogurt or anything. $2 bought a go cup of heaven.) 

The thing about ALL the supermarkets on Bonaire is that you had to bring your own bags to carry your groceries out with. (Presumably because they were eco-sensitive and couldn't handle the amount of trash the other plastic/paper bags would add to the island.) (All the trash has to be hauled OFF Bonaire and away, so the residents use everything up and recycle as much as they can.)

At Van Den Tweel, you also had to rent a shopping cart. All the carts were chained together outside. In order to take one to use, you had to push a quarter in a little slot which released the chain from the handle. When you returned the cart, you pushed the chain back in the handle slot and out popped your quarter.  Neat, huh?! I kept a cart quarter in Bonnie's cupholder so I wouldn't have to dig around in my pocket or purse each time I went. 

STROOPWAFELS!!!

My favorite Dutch thang. 

These were my breakfast every morning after this purchase...along with koffe, sans karnemelk.

(See the shopping bag? You can't believe how many groceries those hold! It's the lugging them up the stairs to the kitchen that's the trick...)

Australian house wine, which was mostly chardonnay as the label indicates, but packaged with Dutch labeling...

I loved that the Oreos (black and whites) had the description in Dutch, French, and Italian!

With a name like "Smaakt", it has to be good! (I think chickpeas in a tomato sauce, I'm not certain.)

Cornstarch was allesbinder. The baking soda was found among the cleaning products. And I had to go to two other groceries to find baking powder for my fritters. (No one bakes, there! It's too hot, and the air conditioning is room by room if you can possibly afford it, so all the baked goods are bought in the markets. And there are precious few ingredients to use if you want to do it yourself.)

I spent quite a lot of the grocery budget on fruit juice, which really was quite good and that Jaspers consumed in vast quantities. (I don't blame them a bit. Toward the end of the stay, I was drinking more of it, too, and I'm not a juice drinker!) The juice came in boxes like you'd buy chicken stock in here, and the only way I could guess at what juice was in the box was by the pictures. If I didn't recognize the fruit, I didn't buy the box.  

One of the things I started doing later in the week was to watch other people's grocery carts if I heard them speaking Papiamentu or Dutch. They knew the good products and produce! The best time to shop if you wanted to avoid crowds was in the afternoon before everyone got off work and the other folks were laying low trying to stay cool. It was wonderfully air conditioned in the supermarkets and I took my time doing the Dutch Label Lottery game. Sunday morning was craziness...I think everyone got out of church, then zipped by the stores to get something for lunch.  

I haven't even touched on the food in the restaurants!

YIKES!

There'll be a second food post, I'm afraid...

The Farmer's Wife Abroad {Drive}

One of the best, most unexpected things I loved about Bonaire was driving into Kralendijk for shopping! Ivan had told me before we got there that the buildings were put up and THEN streets made, not the other way around. He explained that they were random, confusing, curved into cul-de-sacs that were unadvertised, one-way sometimes but not others...so I was a little nervous about getting around on my own because as most of you know, I'm directionally challenged and can get lost in a Target store (even if I've been there before). I wasn't really scared about getting lost on Bonaire because, hey, it's an island; if you drive long enough, you'll eventually get back to the point you started because where else are you going to go, right? But I was worried about taking too long and not getting back in time to make a meal.

Amazingly, though, the streets and roads worked for me on Bonaire. After a few days, I decided it must be because that's how my brain is wired...random, confusing, one-way sometimes but not others.  There were no traffic lights so there were roundabouts which everyone was very efficient in and I found great fun! (In Montana, no one really knows how to use a roundabout so they're kind of dangerous actually. But on Bonaire, they worked like a charm.)

The drivers were generous and easy-going.  One of the things I learned was that the horn on the car is not used as a "weapon" to flog other drivers when they're not moving fast enough.  It's a form of friendly communication...one quick tap means "you've got the right away so take it" or "I'm coming around the corner so pull to the side", two-quick taps means "thank you" or "hello".  Bonairians are not in a hurry and they don't expect you to be either.  I figured out that if I drove as though I knew where I was going (even if I didn't), they'd assume I knew where I was going. This is the only time that has worked for me, and I don't know if it was because they were indulgent of idiots or they actually figured I was in the know.

(They also didn't worry about things like losing cement bags off a truck or people falling off the plastic yard chairs out of the back of their pickup truck going around a corner. These things might happen. Or they might not. No worries!)

Here's my little blue rental car, Bonnie:

She was zippy and nimble, and about as big as your average kitchen table (including the trunk). 

I loved driving her, and if I lived in a town, this is the car I'd want...you wouldn't want to take her on long road trips (more than 20 miles), but for errands and small grocery runs, she's perfect. 

For the first day and a half, the radio was stuck on some station that played Katy Perry and Rhihanna. It was dreadful.

And I tried EVERYTHING to change it.

I told Marc (the villa caretaker) about this travesty, he reached in and magically pushed the same button I had been pushing, "voila!" - Bonaire station!  

No worries, then. 

Bonaire's music is fantastic, mostly because you never know what's coming. Mostly it's a Cuban sound, but one morning I got astonishingly bad covers of classic rock done by Central or South American artists. Another morning, the Catholic prayer list was aired and I'm quite sure that each permanent resident of Bonaire was covered by name, individually. Either that or it was the yearly updated birthday calendar.  I don't know for sure because my Papiamentu is limited to "bon dia/bini", "dushi Bonaire", "danki", and "por fabor". 

I drove with my windows down all the time because the island air was soft (as opposed to the harsh cold of the car air conditioner) and I could see and hear the world better. 

It also enabled me to pull over and take pictures very quickly.

Some of these were taken when I pulled over, some were taken when someone else was driving, but here are some of the things I saw around Kralendijk on my daily jaunts to town. 

This was an outdoor mobile of hats and helmets that was on my main drag.

I don't know if they were trophies from road workers and bikers eliminated by this guy or what, but it made me laugh!

And right across the street from the mobile was this mural...which also made me laugh! 

There was what appeared to be a private residence a little further up the road with about 5 cannons mounted on or in its rock walls! 

PIRATES!

(I have no idea, but they may have been reproductions. )

You can't see, but this boat was used as kind of a porch/deck for the folks who lived in the yellow house.  As I'd drive by, the old guys sitting there would look and nod.  I'm sure they knew EVERYTHING about who was doing what in Kralendijk...

I really wish I'd stopped here, because I was curious as to whether it was a fabric store as well as an alteration shop. It was on a big corner of the road back to the villa and I never saw anyone there, so perhaps the business was no longer running.  (While we were there, a medical school closed its doors abruptly, just up the street from this alteration shop.)

This is on the side of a building that housed a radio station!  Murals everywhere! I loved that people painted their houses whatever they wanted and that if they saw a big blank wall, they'd fill it with art and not advertisement for the most part.

The next three pictures are of the TOP building which houses several businesses as it turns out, but the TOP market was the one I shopped at downtown for specific products such as Diet Coke for Doc. It had a surprisingly large inventory of American products.

These murals are done by the Bonaire artist Henk Roozendaal. I love his work and if you like it, too, connect to his website HERE for more images.

This is the back of the stands at Municipal Stadium which is where I was told a World Cup was played but I had my doubts, so I looked it up when I got home.  The games were finals for the Caribbean Football League from what I can understand which is a branch of the International Football League.  (Soccer is a very confusing wad of leagues and I'm still struggling to make sense of it. The complication with the Bonaire football was that it was legally considered a Dutch team, thereby messing up an already convoluted system. I believe they have it somewhat sorted out now, but prior to 2013 they were trying to figure out where they belonged in the big picture of the football world.)

 I took this picture so you could see the width of the streets and their groovy trucks. This was located right before the downtown one-way puzzle.

And I want the Farmer to build me this mailbox.

Is it not the coolest, most tacky thing you've seen in the last month?!

This is the top of what used to be Fort Oranje which was built in 1639 to defend Bonaire's harbor. After a long history of different uses it was renovated and restored in 1999 and is now used for government offices.

 Ah, the traffic signs...
The top blue with a slash through it does not mean you may not enter but that you may not PARK there. Also, beware the trucks that this entrance admits.

The following are a series of murals that were done on a wall across from the airport on the way back into Kralendijk. They seem to be done by different artists who are proud of their island and its culture. I loved them! (Especially the ladies on the beach...)

I'll end the post here because it's getting rather longish, but you get the idea of what it was like to drive to and through the capital "city"!