Freezing rain and snow last night and more snow in the forecast for today, so school is closed and Sister is home.  The roads are slick so Will is home too.  Good thing.  I went to check the chickens this morning and found a surprise.  Remember the tree tarp that worked so well to shade the pen in the summer?  Well a tarp in the winter brings other advantages (no snow in the pen) and problems (a tarp covered with snow and on the verge of collapse).  It is almost 1:30 and we are just in from a little over two hours of scraping and bracing and shoveling.  There is still more work to be done but we are beat.  Time to start a fire and roast some hotdogs with the kids.

Chickens in Summer

Chickens in Winter

Later… We are all warm now and the snow is coming down so much we have opted to NOT go outside anymore today.  Instead we stayed in and made advent stockings.  We made ours out of paper and wrote activity ideas (have a cup of hot cocoa, sing Jingle Bells in a round, etc.) on the back instead of putting something inside.  What a fun family project!

Later still … With so much to work with, who can resist making snow ice cream?  Here’s our recipe.

• 1 large bowl full of fresh snow
• 1 can Milnot
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• milk or cream

Mix first 4 ingredients then add milk or cream until desired consistency is reached.

We hang lights every year but this year I thought I might skip it in honor of simplicity.  Well that thought lasted about 10 minutes. With such a wonderful canvas, how could I resist.  So we pulled down all the Christmas boxes and dug out the lights.  We decided to only do the trees.  HA! Only the trees?  How many of those do we have again?  Oh well - it only took 6 hours…each (Thanks Aunt R and Grandma for pitching in.)

That’s yours truly at the top.  What is it with me and high places lately?

This year I am thankful that I am learning how to go with the flow. I am learning it is okay if every single detail is not planned and I am learning how to enjoy the moment. Last year Thanksgiving just seemed like a lot of work. Everything that wasn’t perfect seemed like a “disaster!” This year, just as many things weren’t quite “right” - whatever that is - but the holiday was a lot of fun anyway… a lot more fun, actually. It helped a lot that we didn’t have to cart dishes to Grandma’s house and go home a thousand times to pick up something we forgot.

All of the Triple S family was able to come. The food was pretty standard: Roasted Turkey & Pepperidge Farm Dressing, Mashed Potatoes with Giblet Gravy, Broccoli Rice Casserole, Cranberry Salad, Corn & Rolls. Two each of Pecan and Pumpkin pies finished off the meal. I have come to terms with the fact that this will ALWAYS be our Thanksgiving menu. I don’t even suggest changes anymore. I did make homemade butter and whipped cream but just for fun.

Thanksgiving with Will’s family is a different matter altogether. You never know who is going to show up or what they will bring. There will be at least two kinds of meat - if not more, a few random side dishes, and tons of desserts. It’s great! As good as the food is, the company is even better. Though maybe I’m one of those odd folks who actually likes her inlaws. One thing you can always count on - there will be music. Someone will start in playing on the guitar and before you know it a couple of hours have past and people are still saying, “does anyone remember the one that goes….” The only downside is the distance. This year we went to Craig & Leslyn’s near Dodge City, KS which is 6.5 hours of driving time but more real travel time if your passengers are 5 and 2. Actually, they did very well. We took a few activities and Will’s laptop to play DVD’s. - Just in case you are wondering Classic Blue’s Clues was the entertainment of choice. Fortunately we also took two sets of headphones.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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We are a family of odd and varied talents.  Even now, Sister and Aunt R. are practicing a musical gargling duet for Thanksgiving.  Invented by Aunt R. at a young age, musical gargling is exactly what the name implies - get a mouthful of water and gargle the song of your choice.  I had never seen this feat performed by anyone else until Sister, of her own accord, invented it as well.  Is this some sort of strange trait that exists only within my family’s gene pool?

I used to have a handy dandy little stool that I used all over the house.  (A step stool is essentiall equipment for someone who is only about 5 ft tall.) I say “used to” because the day before yesterday my stool rebelled and I now have a 4 inch bruise on my hip in memory of the revolt.  Will said, “Take it easy for a couple of days, okay?”  I smiled and nodded obediently.  Silly man.  There are too many adventures to be had.  Yesterday, we went rock climbing up the chimney and today… well, someone had to get up there and tie a rope to one of the branches so we could shake down pecans.  

Here are Sister’s answers to a questionaire sent home from school.

1. What is design?
I think that design is something that is not together, but you make it look like it’s attached together.
2. What makes something beautiful?
Decorations. Like a little playhouse, or a bike. Or maybe even a picture, a picture frame.
3. Can a picture be a design?  Why or why not?
Oh yes. Because if you have a sky that is real low, it might look like it’s touching the human, but it’s not.

Picture added Nov 29, 2006 (Sister saw the jet trails in the sky and said, “Wow, what a cool design!”)

My family thinks I’m nuts but having heard this recipe on The Splendid Table, I was intrigued.  It seemed like the ultimate salty/sweet combination …. and it is!  This stuff is delicious!  I don’t think I’ll share it with the skeptics.

Pecan Brown Sugar Bacon Ice Cream
Makes 1 1/2 quarts

Here’s a delicious surprise: tiny bits of salty bacon are a wonderful addition to this creamy dessert. Maple-cured or applewood-smoked bacon seem to be ideal choices here.

• 3 cups heavy cream
• 1 cup milk
• 1 1/4 cups firmly packed dark brown sugar
• 4 egg yolks
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• 1 pound bacon, cooked until very crisp, blotted on paper towels and finely chopped (about 1/2 cup)

1. Combine the cream, milk, and sugar in a heavy saucepan and cook over medium-high heat until hot and the sugar is completely dissolved, stirring occasionally.

2. In a small bowl, beat the egg yolks until smooth. Slowly whisk in 1 cup of the hot cream-milk mixture. Return the yolk mixture to the saucepan, beating constantly. Cook over medium heat, stirring continuously, until the mixture coats the back of a wooden spoon, 6-8 minutes. Do not let it boil.

3. Strain the mixture into a clean bowl and let it cool completely. Stir in pecans and bacon and freeze in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s directions. To showcase the ice cream’s flavor, before serving, remove from freezer and let it soften slightly.

Excerpted from Seduced by Bacon: Recipes & Lore About America’s Favorite Indulgence by Joanna Pruess (The Lyons Press, 2006). Copyright 2006 by Joanna Pruess.

From the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary:

Main Entry: quag
Pronunciation: ‘kwag, ‘kwäg
Function: noun
Etymology: origin unknown

MARSH or BOG

But Will says that it’s even more specific than that.  That it means any sort of land that feels spongy as you walk on it but that you don’t actually sink down into. (That would be a quagmire.)  All this sparked by a topic on NPR’s Fresh Air and that got us thinking about other words we don’t use any more.  For example, fifty years ago people referred to 1901 at ”ot one” or 1903 as “ot three” but we don’t call this year ”ot six”.  Language is lost and created all at the same time.  If I told my granparents that I ”googled” on a regular basis they might question my sanity or my morals. :)  Interestingly enough, I was unable to Google “ot one”… Am I spelling this right?
 

Courtesy of Kiddley - we have found that a Scavenger Hunt in a Bottle (Scottle) can be just as much fun as one outdoors and much warmer on a blustery day such as this one.  We filled our clear container with oat flour (not too full!) and these items:

• key
• screw
• paperclip
• cough drop
• smallest babuska doll
• golf ball (orange)
• packet of splenda
• sonic girl
• green rock
• gold rock
• plate of spaghetti
• potato head tongue
• rainbow mouse
• bow
• the # 8

Turning the bottle this way and that we finally spied them all.  A half an hour worth of fun which required no batteries, screens, button pushing or annoying beeps.

7 pairs of pants (4 of Sister’s, 3 of Brother’), 6 kid shirts and 1 sweater, 1 dress, 3 pairs of underwear, 4 pairs of socks and 1 not so cheap gym outfit - these were the contents in my dryer this afternoon.  Ideally, these were the clothes I expected to fold and put away because they were clean but alas, no.  Only 5 items survived the wrath of the crayon and the crayon itself morphed into a sad, little ball of wax never to draw again.

This never happened when I used a clothesline.  Any thoughts on how to clean out a blue, waxy dryer??