Brrr

When I left for work this morning it was a balmy 2 degrees.  With the windchill, it felt like -21 F.  I walk to and from work in all kinds of weather but even I think that's COLD!!!  But I layered up and pulled out my big fuzzy scarf and off I went.  J14 also walks to school and she bundled up as well.  

I was amazed at the number of people walking around totally unprepared for the cold.  As I passed the bus stop on my way home (it had warmed up to 8) there was a young girl standing at the bus stop in a light coat and gloves- no hat or scarf.  She was jumping up and down to keep warm.  If she had been the only person I saw today not dressed for the weather it would have been one thing but there were so many of them around.  We had a student start with us today for a 1 week clinical observation.  She showed up in a light coat with no hat or anything. When I asked her if she was cold, she said, "no" she drove so she didn't have to be outside.  She got a really strange look on her face when I asked her what she would do if she had car trouble or slid off the road on the ice.  I honestly don't think that had ever occurred to her.  At least my Dad taught me well- always be prepared for the worst.  Maybe that's why I'm so into the homesteading thing.  I want to be prepared for the worst.

Someone a while ago, told me that we are practicing for the real thing.  Today's weather was the real thing here.  And tomorrow it's supposed to snow.  Ahhh, Iowa in the winter.

Independence days- week 2

Another week gone by.  Where does the time go?  Things are gearing up for the holiday season.  I found out yesterday that my sister Joyce is coming from Maryland to my parent's house next weekend so I need to try to rearrange my schedule to get down there to see her.  V has a job interview on Friday with the University (cross your fingers!!!) for a clerk 4 position in the graduate medical college.  So far today, everyone is reasonably healthy.  So far, so good....

Now on to the business at hand.  Independence Days.

1 Plant something-  NOPE.  But my little lettuce seedlings are up in the basement.  I think I need to add another bank of lights because they are already seeming a little leggy. I thought I could get away with less fixtures since I had only the one window box, but I guess not.

2. Harvest something- NOPE, again. The Christmas jalapeno is slowly ripening. 

3.  Preserve something- Struck out again.

4.  Store something-  Ok, Here we go, finally something I can go with.  I picked up some extra English walnuts at the store during a holiday baking supply sale and stashed them in the chill drawer in the fridge with the multitude of other baking goodies: nuts, chocolate chips, dried fruit, etc.

5. Manage reserves- Finally made applesauce from the wrinkled apples I had left.  J14 finished it off yesterday so those are gone.  Brought up sugar from the reserves in the basement but will need to restock next time there is a good sale at the store.  Ate almost all of our meals from the freezer this week and are planning next weeks from there as well to make room.  

6. Cook something new-  Well, kind of.  We had 'make your own' calzones for dinner.  We've done pizza a lot but not calzones.  They were a hit.  

7.  Prep something- not really.  Most purchases were of the holiday sort.

8. Reduce waste-  Recycled, composted and used cloth bags at the grocery as usual.

9. Learn a new skill-  Still working on knitting.

10.  Work on Community food security- Tried to use our upcoming beef purchase as a jumping off point for talking about food security at work but things were so busy that I didn't have much time to really get into it.  I'll try again this week. 

11. Regenerate what is lost-relationship focus this week.  I had I11 take a plate of holiday cookies to the retired couple a few houses down from us.  There are only 5 or 6 houses in our square block area that are actually owner occupied- the rest are rental (read here students)- and we try to maintain connections with these people- to build a sense of community and stability.  This couple came to I11's rescue on Friday when he was home sick alone and managed to lock himself out of the house without shoes or a coat when he went out to get the mail.  (INSERT MOMMY GUILT HERE THAT I LEFT HIM HOME ALONE!!!)  We are the only family left here that still has young children.  The others are retired or nearing it- but we all try to keep communications open and get together at least once a year for a community event.   

Vanilla Cookies

The original card

We made cookies tonight.  An old family recipe. When my paternal grandmother died (when I was about 10) I inherited her recipe box.  I wasn't very excited about it at the time but as I got older I realized what a treasure trove it was.  This is one of my favorites.  It says in the top corners M.K and used often for over 60 years. Now, the M.K would have been my Aunt Margaret before she was married.  When she died in 1997, she had been married for 60 years.  So that makes this recipe at least 120 years old.  WOW!!! The original card is written in pen and ink and is now old and tattered.  I don't use the original card anymore.  But anything that measures the flour in quarts and says it will keep for weeks in a stone crock, covered, is worth keeping. The original recipe makes LOTS of cookies.  I scale it down for manageability- it divides well by thirds.

Vanilla Cookies

3 eggs

1 cup milk

3 cups sugar

1 cup clarified drippings (shortening)

3 tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla

8 cups flour (2 qts)

Cream sugar and drippings, add well beaten eggs.  Sift baking powder with flour- more may be needed to make dough stiff enough.  Add to eggs, etc, alternating with spoonsful of milk.  Finally stir in vanilla. (I either add the vanilla with the eggs or into the milk)  Roll thin and bake (375 F)

I'm not a big frosting fan so we usually make an egg wash and paint our cookies before we bake them. The other bonus to this is that they are done when the come out of the oven.  And it allows for some creativity.

K8 painting cookies

I even have a set of small paintbrushes that are used just for this purpose.  We also put on the sprinkles before the cookies are baked.  One nice thing about this recipe is that it isn't overly sweet and without frosting it is even better.

The finished product!

I have these wonderful old floursack towels that I got from my Mom that are the cookie towels.  She always lay her cookies to cool on one of these on the counter.   They are ancient but cookies are the only thing I use them for.  

Cobbler and Hot Chocolate

Not necessarily together...

Cherry Cobbler

I have been trying to make space in our freezer for the side of beef that is coming in January so I'm pulling out a few things.  Last night I made a cherry cobbler from cherries from my parent's orchard.  I love this recipe.  It is quite easy and is actually the very first recipe I ever made by myself when I was young.  I still have it on the original card I copied it onto (childish handwriting and misspellings and all).  It is actually supposed to be a blackberry cobbler but I have found that it works with any kind of fruit.  This was one of my grandmother's recipes. It makes this wonderful, fruity, gooey sauce in the bottom of the pan.

Blackberry (or whatever) Cobbler

1/2 c sugar

1/4 c shortening

1 c flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 c milk

Combine ingredients for batter.  Spread into greased 8"x8" baking dish.  Cover top with 1 quart canned fruit (or 1 quart fresh fruit and 1/2 c water). Sprinkle top with 1/2 c additional sugar.  Bake 45 min at 375 F.  

Can be served hot with milk, cream or ice cream.  It is also good cold (we had it for breakfast).

In Hot Chocolate news:  The boys brought home another fundraiser for school a few weeks ago.  Usually the fundraisers sell lots of junk that I feel bad about trying to sell to people (I find it appalling that elementary children are expected to fund raise at all!).  But this one I felt good about.  They were selling fair trade coffee and chocolate from Equal Exchange.  We are able to get Equal Exchange coffee through the buying club at our church but they don't generally get the hot cocoa mix.  We decided to try the spicy one.  Whoa! it has a kick!  Not overly sweet and you can definitely taste the chili.  V and I really like it and it is definitely having a good effect on my congestion.  

Now, on to laundry and cookie baking...

Finally...

From this...

to this...

I took the time to cope with the last of the apples languishing away in the basket.  Yum, applesauce.  I like mine a little chunky and with a bit of cinnamon.  It was one of the things I managed to get done today.  I ended up staying home sick today.  We've had a respiratory virus passing around.  J14 was first Monday night and Tuesday.  I11 was sent home from school yesterday and is still running a 100.5 temp.  I woke up this morning with a headache and tight chest and a temp of 99.3.  That doesn't seem like much for most people but when you consider that my 'normal' temp is 96.8 (I have a dyslexic body temperature) if I get to 99, I'm sick.  I sat around on the couch with I11, snuggled under the blankets, surfed the net, looked at my seed catalogues and for a while this morning- peeled apples. It was a nice, mindless task that let me feel not totally useless.  Here's to cold drugs and an early bedtime.

The power of community

Good things are happening in the world.  And it's because of 'the little guys'.  I'm always amazed what can happen when people pull together for a common cause.  I'm so happy that the Neophyte Homestead is back on solid footing- or at least much more solid than a few days ago.  I even got a bit teary when I saw the total reached in such a short time.  It restores my faith in humanity. 

I have always tried to instill in my children the importance of giving back to the community, that 'pay it forward' mentality.  I'm not always successful but then they often surprise me.  Generally, at this time of year, we set aside a portion of money to give to a community cause, it has been the food bank, the free lunch program, or most recently the angel tree.  We talked about it at dinner on Monday and decided to put the money we had set aside into the pot to save Phelan's homestead.  That, to me, is a much more worthy cause than buying a plastic toy that will be briefly played with, then most likely end up in the landfill. Building community- through small acts.  We play it out in other ways as well.

Let me tell you about Cassie's Mittens.  Cassandra H was one of my daughter's best friends when they were small.  They did all the usual little girl things: birthday parties, sleepovers and so on.  Her Mom, Debbie, is a friend of mine.  Cassie used to frequently come home from school without her mittens, frustrating her parents to no end.  'How can she have lost ANOTHER pair!'  Until they learned that Cassie was giving her mittens away on the playground to children who didn't have any and who's hands were cold.

Cassie died of carbon monoxide poisoning, in an incident that nearly took the lives of the rest of her family, when she was 8.  Let me tell you, it is a heartbreaking thing to tell your 8 year old child that one of her best friends has died.  The winter after her death, a mitten drive was started in her honor, providing gloves, hats and scarves to the local schools so the office would have a supply to give to children who had forgotten, lost or just didn't have mittens- there is no discrimination on income- the only requirement is that the child needed them.  This project has grown over the last 6 years to include other agencies.  There are donation boxes in the schools, hospitals and area businesses.  Last year, we counted, sorted and distributed over 4000 items, to the schools, homeless shelter, free lunch and crisis center.  At one point our basement was overrun with mittens, hats and scarves as J14 sorted and packaged them to distribute to the schools.  

Giving back to the community can be so simple- holding an elevator for someone, giving a child a pair of mittens, purchasing a little extra for the food bank, giving to a friend.  Most of us won't be involved in earthshaking major events.  But the power to make real changes aren't in the big things.  They are in the small, everyday ways we can make a difference in someone else's lives.

Be the change you want to see in the world.  - Mahatma Gandhi-

She's BUSTED!!

Teenagers!!!  

Just when you think you have done a great job and have an intelligent, trustworthy child, they prove you wrong.

J14 got up this morning complaining of still not feeling well.  She's got the respiratory crud that has been going around.  I had just decided that I would let her stay home when we got the call that school was cancelled due to the weather. It was ICY this morning!! So all 3 children were home with her in charge.

Well, evidently about 11 she called V to ask if her friend Riley could come over.  Riley lives just down the street and has been over many times but, with J14 'sick' and no parents home he said NO.  Well, unbeknownst to her, his workplace closed at 1 to let people get home- so he arrived home rather unexpectedly to find Riley at our house.  To make matters worse, it turns out that she had bribed her little brothers with cash so they wouldn't tell. 

So- she is busted.  We asked her what she thought would be an appropriate punishment and she offered with 2 months of being grounded- with the exception of the winter formal.  Now, I'll be honest, the first thing I thought of was not letting her go to the dance but I went through H*** hemming that dress so she is going!!  

Our final solution is that she loses internet access for the rest of the month.  Now that hits her where it hurts!  Her computer will be disconnected from the router.  She will have limited access via my laptop to the online version of her algebra textbook.  (It's a nice option so they don't have to haul the heavy text home with them) and I'll relent eventually and let her check her email on occasion... but there will be NO instant messaging with her friends, no facebook, no booksie... NOTHING!  

We had a rather pointed discussion about issues of trust and how her behavior was a violation of that trust.  

As I said at first...TEENAGERS!!!

Oh, and we made her pay her brothers- because they didn't tell!