Snow!

It's a perfect day to be snowed in! The fire is warming the house, the Christmas lights are sparkling on the tree, Christmas carols playing in the background, cookies baking in the oven.

Erica and Aidan have been outside on three separate occasions digging forts and playing in the new snow. The birds don't seem to mind the wind and snow. There were a dozen flitting around the bird feeders when I woke up this morning.

I took this cool shot of the garden shed from the Hearth room--with the lights on the Christmas tree reflected on the glass door.

 The wind was really whipping the snow around and we were glad we didn't have to go anywhere. Not that we could get into or out of the garage...

We'll dig out tomorrow, or later today. For now, we're hunkered down!

Monday was tree cutting and trimming day on Dead Rat Hill. Everyone but the chickens ventured down to "the Pines" and scouted out a suitable tree. "The Pines" is an impenetrable fortress of towering trees, devoid of animal life, surrounded by festering, sulfurous swampland as far as the eye can see....

No, it's not.

Really it's just a living snow fence for the main drive leading up to the three homes that occupy these parts. One of our responsibilities is to maintain these towering trees and ensure that new ones are growing in to take place of the ones that die or get blown down. One (very small) way we will do this is by cutting down a Christmas tree each year from the smaller trees growing on the edge of the main group.

Many of the smaller trees are quite crowded and have branches growing only on one side.

Oh well, you really only see one side of the tree once it's in the house anyway...

The kids absolutely love this ritual. I think for them, it wouldn't be Christmas without it.

We collected a tree for the hearth room and one for the kids to have upstairs--this one is primarily adorned with small stuffed animals and a smattering of the kids favorite ornaments. Aidan also had to have a baby tree that he put into a glass jar and decorated with tiny wire and bead ornaments he made himself.

Here it is, next to the handmade lego candy dish that he made last week. So clever, that boy!

And without further ado, here is the Dead Rat Hill Christmas Tree, version 2010:

Yup, it's a bit Charlie Brown-ish, but it's all ours!

Quiche a la Dead Rat Hill

Aidan cracked the first DRH eggs into my food processor to make a quiche for dinner the other night. We'd been getting anywhere from one to three eggs a day for a few days and had enough for a meal.

Look at those yolks!

I sauteed some onions and added some kale from the garden that I had frozen. I thawed it prior to adding it to the pan and let it warm up a bit, steaming off the excess liquid. Then, I stirred in some thyme, salt, pepper and dry mustard and let it cool for a few minutes. Meanwhile, I spread some cheese over the bottom of the crust. I added the kale to the eggs, which I had beaten with about a cup of milk, poured that over the cheese, topped it with a bit of Parmesan, baked it and voila:

The kids even liked it! Though they are pretty good eaters (they try new things, etc) they can get picky from time to time, especially with things that have a lot of different ingredients all mixed together. It made a delicious, easy dinner and good left-overs for breakfast!

For a few years, our family has participated in a dinner ritual. Jim's cousin, Chelsea, had given us a sea turtle "bank" after a brief visit with us several years ago.

"Turtley" has seen better days. One of his flippers was broken off and Jim glued it back on. His paint is chipped in lots of places and he could probably use a good cleaning, but he has held our gratitude each day. As we sit down to dinner, we each take a quarter from a stash in a kitchen cup and say what we are thankful for that day, placing the quarter in Turtley. At the end of the month, we empty Turtley and mail a check to a charity of our choice. We keep a list, but sometimes there is a sudden emergency and we direct the money to that--house fires, floods and oil spills, to name a few.

Daily gratitude is a wonderful way to remind ourselves of all that we have to be truly thankful for. It's so easy to get caught up in the things we don't have, the things we wish we had--or even things we think we deserve. So much of our culture and media focus on the latter. The danger is that we overlook all of the bounty in our lives. Our health, the love of family and friends. These are the things for which we should be most thankful.

On this day of thanks, may you be well loved, well fed and warm. And may you be present to all of your bounty.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Applesauce, Take 2

As my girl friends and I came to the realization that we were all rationing our few remaining jars of canned applesauce, we decided it was a good time to can some more. The fact that we were standing inside the store of Lapacek's Apple Orchard certainly helped. We sealed the deal with the purchase of a bushel and a peck of apples--Idared's and Lapacek's own baker's mix. An afternoon later, we are 8 quarts and 28 pints richer. The kids all had samples and deemed it "yummy"!

This is one of those tasks that I could certainly do at home alone, but it is so enjoyable to can with friends. We catch up on each others lives and generally make the time seem to fairly fly. We share the work and the bounty.

Perhaps I will try to go it alone, one day. But for now, it's much more motivating to share this activity with friends. And to be thankful that I have so many of those in my life!

Houston, We have EGGS!

Yes, after months of waiting, we finally have eggs. Three, to be exact. But it's a start. I'll be making something eggy for dinner later this week.

sticky situation

HE harvested some honey over the weekend. I had been worried that our hives didn't seem active these past weeks, but that probably had more to do with the colder weather and lack of flowers nearby. One of the hives is definitely queen-less, but our second hive is thriving.

The Bee Charmer

Low-tech honey extraction

Apparently fun

Aidan thoroughly enjoyed the process

Filtering

Yum!

Honeycomb!

Sweetness!

Horse Riding

Thanks to my friend, Krista and a few bike rides, I discovered a neighbor who gives horse riding lessons. Acquiring horses has always been on the long-term project list for Dead Rat Hill. It seems prudent that Erica and Aidan learn how to ride from experienced personnel. I haven't been on a horse since I was a kid, but I more or less remember the basics.

Erica has been riding Skip-- a sweet, gentle and quite humungus animal:

But my girl's got the genes--she's a natural, according the Patty (our instructor). I'm quite sure it came from me. I'm a natural too. My most distinct horse riding memories both involve falling off, but I'm pretty sure I'm a natural. Anyway I like horses.

Aidan rode Rocket last week and loves riding!

It's so cool to see him beaming with pride. Patty loads on the praise and he is happiness personified.

He's a natural, too. He gets it from me.

For the time being, I just watch my offspring prance around. Next spring I'll get my ridin' boots on and join the party. In the meantime, I get visits from King the cat and Gomer the pup. I read books and play the paparazzi.

Life is good.

Pumpkins and Gourds and Dogs, oh my!

Magic

We hosted several friends for a "local" dinner on our patio this past Saturday. Everyone contributed to the meal by preparing dishes using locally-grown and raised foods (there were a few exceptions--notable among them was KB's smashing chocolate brownie! Heaven!)

The night was perfect. Our friends are perfect. Life is good.

The chickens were hoping to join us (and not as part of the main course)

Our children hosted an art gallery in our living room. They invited all the other children to bring along some of their artwork to display:

After the meal, we had a bonfire

and some dancing

A magical evening.

Seasons

I love fall. It's always been my favorite time of year. As a kid I think it had a lot to do with the new school year--all those new notebooks, pencils and folders held so much promise. As an adult, I've always appreciated the beauty of the changing foliage. When we lived in town we drove to Madison each Sunday to attend church and each week brought a new palette along the Baraboo bluffs. I love the richness of the earth tones. These are the colors that we have chosen to adorn the walls inside our home. They comfort me.

However, my alternate reason for loving this time of the year has to do with my garden. This may come as somewhat of a shock, but toward the end of summer I start to dislike ( I won't go so far as to say 'hate') my garden. There's always so much to do--harvesting, processing, freezing. And the weeds seem to know that your time needs to be spent on these other tasks. So they multiply. Exponentially. This year, weeds took over my garden.

And I admit it--I let them. By this time of year, I am full of mixed emotions--pride over all of the delicious food we grew, shame over the plants I inadvertently killed, joy at the sight of those plants that continue to nourish us and frustration that (once again) I wasn't able to keep up with everything. So (so, so so) many things that I intended to do were never done. Numerous vegetables that went unused. And weeds-everywhere weeds!

But as with all seasons, this one will end...

Taking with it, the bounty that fed us these past months...

And when winter arrives in full, I will be dreaming of springtime dirt...

Clutching a seed catalog in my hands.

autumn

With the first frosts we know autumn is officially here. I spent some time today picking the remaining ripe tomatoes. In the past we have also picked greenies to ripen in an out-of-the-way place. One memorable year I believe we began (unintentionally) making tomato wine in a box in our basement. Let's just say I wouldn't have used those tomatoes in anything I wanted to feed to my family.

So I harvested several tomatoes (only the ripe ones this year), some sage, marjoram, parsely, carrots and kale. Many of these would fare well through a light frost, but I was doing a bit of cooking today, so I took them. And one of the many things I made today was a batch of roasted tomato and vegetable sauce from a recipe sent to me by a friend. She found it on another blog titled An Oregon Cottage. It's a lovely sauce and sooo easy to make. I had to take this photo before I put it in the oven. Gorgeous.

Roasted it at 400 for about 45 minutes. Secret ingredient is balsamic vinegar. Things got a bit crazy in the kitchen after this, so I forgot to get an after photo--but it is all in my freezer waiting for a cold winter day to be consumed on some pasta with a delicious parmesan cheese. Yummy, yum, yum.

The first cold night also requires our masonry heater to be stoked. HE cleaned out the chimney today to get it ready for the season and then we fired it up tonight. It typically "sweats" a bit the first few times we use it--or at least it did the last 2 years, so it's a good idea to start with a few smaller fires initially. Whether it was the ambiance or the music, we had children dancing around the living room...

...coulda been that it was a sleep-over.....