A good reason for vodka

Whenever my niece is here we cook all day long. I have no idea why. It's just what we do. Half-way through dumping ingredients for banana bread into the stand mixer today, after she falsely accused me of not having enough flour, we realized the vanilla extract did not smell like vanilla.

It was time.

*rubbing my hands together in glee*

There are, perhaps, many reason to have vodka in the house. Or, perhaps, not... depending on your relationship or lack thereof with alcohol. But every house needs vodka, I think, for this one reason if for no other.

The lovely couple: A cheap bottle of vodka and a stunningly gorgeous organic vanilla bean.



Grab a knife. Things are gonna get just a bit violent. But first, good luck getting the bean back while everyone is waving it under their nose once. Or twice. You may have to threaten and blackmail and arm wrestle some of the small children to get it back.

The bean is that unreal.

Amazing new technology! Scratch and sniff! Watch out for the knife.



Didn't work? Sorry.

Ha. Hahahah!

Did I mention vodka?

Caution: Don't drink while dissecting your vanilla bean (or blogging)



Slice one side all the way down the length, but only half-way through the width. This exposes all the millions of wonderful tiny itty bitty balls of vanilla goodness that are hiding in there. Do it on wax paper in case any of them escape. You must not lose a single one.

It's okay if they get on your fingers.

Mmmmmmmm...



I've been using reusing this old vanilla extract bottle since 2004. I've been using reusing my jug of laundry detergent that long too. I'm darn proud of both.

Here's the really difficult part. Put the vodka down and pay attention!

(It took me over a minute to find an exclamation point for that last sentence. And did any of you notice that at the end of yesterday's blog post I thought today was the 10th? I took half of my 10 on 10 pictures before I realized it. Help. Someone help me. I've misplaced my brain. And there's a hen sleeping in my entryway.)

Yes, pay attention people.

Bravely shove that bean right in.



Then, drown it.



And there you have it. Homemade vanilla extract for a tiny fraction of the cost of store bought. Today it doesn't smell like anything special, but let it sit for a couple weeks and the wonderful will nearly kill you every time you open the lid. As you use it bit by bit, keep adding more vodka to fill it up. A year and a half later when it loses that yummy vanilla scent, you grab yourself a new bean and start fresh again.

So easy. And frugal. And fun.

I love this.

Facing Myself - October Linky

The Bean was down for a nap. The clock was ticking...

I decided it was time to do this three months ago, but it's the sort of thing that doesn't actually happen until I've had enough. Honestly, I can't remember the last time. It's been awhile. Before the Bean was born, probably.

Scissors? Check.



Wet hair? Check.

And this time... camera on the tripod and a five-dollar remote in my hand? Check.

Yes. Why yes I did.



Snip. Snip. Snip.

Pay someone to do this? Ummm... let me think. No.



There comes a point when I have to force myself to put the scissors down. For my own good. I tend to get a little out of control. I snip faster and faster as I go. I'm pretty sure it freaks my husband out.

He likes my hair long.

But it's my hair, and I'll snip it until I'm satisfied.



I always feel like such an airhead afterwards, as if I cut off five pounds of hair or something. What does it even cost for a real haircut anymore? For someone with plain old long hair, it costs way too much, I'll bet.

If you're wanting to link up, you don't have to cut your own hair. But you do have to take your own picture. Man, I'm a double threat this time aren't I?

Take a few minutes to head back over to the September linky and check out all the creative entries. Urban Muser's iphone shot just blew me away. I'm enjoying not just your self-portraits, but very much also the emotions that many of you are sharing. It's not easy, I know that much.

The Facing Myself linky will be open through the end of the month.

Edited to add: I've been chastised by a couple of hairdressers now, because "that thing" will "eat up the ends" of my "poor hair" (even though I never have split ends and go a year and a half between doing this). FYI, kids, please don't try this at home.

Honey mustard

I kind of splurged and bought some frozen crispy breaded chicken strips from Schwan's. Let me confess, it was a luxury purchase. I have this lofty, delusional goal of slashing our food budget in half compared to last year, and this particular purchase sure didn't help.

Regardless, I was very excited about them. Once in awhile, even I throw caution to the wind.

No, eggs in my pocket goes in a different category. Like, convenient but stupid.

Anyway, I was excited about the chicken strips until I realized we were out of honey mustard sauce.

Ugh, fate! My entire crispy chicken strip experience DESTROYED! I had been undone by a grocery shopping list of days past gone horribly wrong. The perpetually depressed and pessimistic side of me stood there in utter defeat.

Sigh. What to do, what to do?

The dumb things were already in the oven.

There was no turning back.

But then the enterprising, frugal optimist in me arose victorious. We have honey. We have mustard. Could it possibly be just as simple as it sounds?

The boys helped (very loose definition of the word 'helped') mix a little bit of yellow prepared mustard with a lot of creamy honey.

Just for fun, and kind of an afterthought, we added some whole mustard seed. You know, fun the same way sprinkles are fun.

Mustard seed sprinkles!

We got the slop mixed up. I tasted it and thought "Wow! Sweet yet zingy. Not bad, not bad at all". The boys begged for a taste and I knew from the "mmmmmmmmmmmm" and "Can I have some more?" that we had done well.


It was then that the jar of mustard seed caught my eye.

I wondered for a moment if I should call 911.


That mustard seed is old. OLD.

It came with a spice rack we received as a wedding present, a spice rack that we no longer have. That jar has been hauled across the continent no less than three times in the eleven years we've been married.

How on earth did it survive the radical decluttering attacks I occasionally subject our home to?

I picked up the jar and gave it a quick but suspicious inspection. Hmmm, dry mustard seed rolling around freely, no off colors, nice sharp mustardy smell.

Dehydration is a method of food preservation. But, eleven years?

Oh well, considering how things normally go around here, eleven year old dry mustard seed was probably the least of our worries.

And for once I can honestly say, all was well.

Amazing

We were sitting at the table eating when suddenly our youngest boy stretched his arms out to the heavens and declared, "That was amazing!"

I saw that his plate was empty, which meant he had actually eaten his food. All of his food, every last bite was gone. I had to agree with him, that really was amazing. That kid never eats his food.

The little bean had devoured almost all of the broccoli from my plate, like the little broccoli thief that she is. I don't remember saying it was amazing that she was eating so much broccoli, although it was, and I may have.

Even if he was just echoing my sentiments, it was still awful cute.

But THIS is really amazing.


On a friend's recommendation, I gambled seventeen dollars and ninety-five cents. That beautiful baby tush is wearing a bumGenius 3.0.

Do not laugh!

Honestly, that diaper is nothing less than magical.

I cloth diapered all my babies, that is, during the day. We have always used disposables at night, because otherwise I would be a very bad mom. For some reason my babies butt's turn flaming bright red if I put them in a cloth diaper overnight. I tried on several occasions with each of my kids. Not good.

I know other moms who use regular cloth diapers at night with no trouble at all. Mine must have super acid pee or something.

It was obvious that disposables hold the moisture off the baby's skin, keeping the little butt happy. It worked.

But I was not happy.

Disposables are not cheap, even if we only used one each night.

I don't even want to know how much space a year's worth of diapers take up in the landfill, again even if only using one each night. I felt guilty and environmentally irresponsible.

I'm the kind of girl who would rather do laundry than go shopping. Out of diapers? No problem, throw them in the wash. Out of disposables for night time? Oh crap (sometimes literally).

So you see the dilemma.

The bumGenius has a suedecloth lining that supposedly wicks moisture to the middle of the diaper, where a removable soaker is inserted. I was skeptical. But on the chance that it would actually work, I figured it was worth a try.

I had a touch of mommy guilt as I got her ready for bed last night. Would I find her soaking in a puddle of pee a few short hours later?

There must be some sort of magical fairy dust sprinkled on this diaper.

Her butt looked perfect in the morning, not a touch of redness. Nothing leaked, and she even smelled lovely.


But the most absolutely amazing thing which I did not expect at all?

Oh my goodness! SHE SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT!

Scavenging sunflower seeds

What kind of person gathers dirty sunflower seeds off the highway and puts them in her used Cadillac?

Yesterday morning was the third time I have had my trunk full of sun seeds. I shoveled them off the highway, again. But this time I wondered what it said about me.

Please excuse me while I try to get my cat to stop eating a blanket.

Anyway, back to the sun seeds. I don't care. They were there, and I took them.

End of story. Well, not really.

The second time I rescued sun seeds, I couldn't find enough buckets. So I did what any chicken owner with a corn stove would reasonably do. I stole my husband's corn hauling buckets. I say they're his buckets because it is his job to haul corn. I only do that if I have to. I'm the mom. I have other things to do, although not necessarily better things. Things like cleaning squash off the kitchen ceiling.

What is with this cat?

Hoping the pile of seeds would still be where I saw it, and planning to pick more up the following morning... I informed my husband he would be unable to fill all of his buckets with corn, as is his evening ritual. Obviously, I needed to use them.

He was not amused.

He found me a different bucket, a bigger one. If I did not have the car that I do have, it would not have fit in the trunk.

I was pleased. This should work.

When I got to the magic sunflower seed spot on the highway, the BIG pile was gone. Bummer, but there was enough of the small pile remaining that it was worth stopping. So I shoveled seeds into my 5 gallon bucket, which I then poured into the BIG pail in my trunk. I did this three or four times. I had a lot of seeds in there.


Only after I got home did I realize I would have to lift that big thing out of my trunk.

I figured I might as well try, being as I am a farmer and can take care of myself. I have chickens, does that make me a rancher?

Seriously, this cat will not stop nibbling on this blanket. Does it mean she has some sort of vitamin deficiency... or simply dementia?

After first checking to be sure I had no eggs in my pocket, I managed to hoist a zillion sunflower seeds out of my trunk. There, the hard part is done right?

It wasn't the weight so much as the awkward size that was the problem.

I waddled like a duck half-way to the barn. Then I put it down so I could think. Guess what? It slid like a dream across the snow! I pulled that bucket the rest of the way to the barn, and reasonably fast too.

I left a very interesting track in the snow.

Very pleased with myself, standing just outside the barn, I realized there was another problem. The barn door wasn't open wide enough to fit the bucket through, and the barn door is frozen in place for most of the winter.

One of my roosters was growling and I felt like doing the same.

I made it this far so I tried sliding the door. Wow, if only my life was this easy every day. I moved it a little, and a little more, and just a bit more. All that was left was to swing the huge unwieldy bucket up onto the dog house.

Victory was mine!

Was it worth it?

I don't know.

What else would I do to entertain myself in the middle of January?

Right now, I have two things to do. The type of things that do not fall into the category of entertainment, but more like whatever cleaning squash from the ceiling would be categorized as. I must go vacuum the remaining sunflower seeds from my Cadillac trunk, and clean the cat puke off my bed.

I knew eating a blanket was a bad idea.

Haircuts

Our boys got haircuts last week. Haircuts that are such an ordeal, we go super short with them.

One of these boys thinks he loves getting his hair cut, that is, until he is trapped there, stuck in the middle of it. Despite my best efforts, little bits of hair get in his eyes, and up his nose, and poke into his skin around his neck. It isn't long before he is fussing, and it isn't much later that it turns into full blown howling.

Once the result is more or less satisfactory, we vacuum the kid off, and into the tub he goes. A bubble bath can make almost anything better, and in a real hurry too.

What a handsome guy!


The other boy is so excited for his haircut that he rips off his shirt and pants, and laughs as he climbs up into the chair. A ticklish goofy kid plus a vibrating clippers is a bad mix. He giggles through the entire haircut. But his giggles are so wiggly that at some point I ask his Daddy to come and grab his head to hold it still for me. His giggling turns into deep belly laughing, so infectious that soon all of us are wiping tears off our faces.

What a stinker. It's all I can do to get the job done, and get that kid thrown into the tub with his brother.


Once upon a time, we used to take the clippers to one of our indoor cats twice a year, but don't even ask me about that!

For the birds

Yes, that was me.

That was me shoveling sunflower seeds off the highway. When I saw those black piles on the side of the road, I headed straight home for a shovel and three of our corn-hauling buckets. AND I'm not ashamed to say that when I ran out of buckets, I used a reusable shopping bag that was conveniently in the trunk of the car.

A truck drove past me verrrrrry slowly. I waved at them as if to say, "No trouble here, I've got it all under control". But like I said, by that point I was shoveling snowy, dirty sunflower seeds into a bright green canvas bag. I wonder what they thought.

It was almost 20 degrees out, but the wind was cold. I had snot dripping off the end of my red nose.

That was a HUGE pile of sunfower seeds on the road. I bet I didn't even take half of it. There were little bird tracks all over in the dusting of snow. They were having a feast, and I left plenty for them. But I just had to get my birds in on the fun too.

I might have taken more, but all my barley garbage cans at home are full, so I have nowhere to store it. As it is, the mice are probably stealing seeds from my open buckets in the barn. The cat has been happy. He wasn't interested in his breakfast yesterday or the day before. Normally that cat acts like he's starving.

So the seeds attract mice, which the cat eats. The chickens LOVE those filthy sunflower seeds, they're acting like it's Christmas. They are still laying between three and five eggs a day, when the neighbor's chickens have stopped laying because of the cold and short days. They are proving to be the cold-hardy birds they were supposed to be. I'm glad I could thank them with a treat.

Happiness all around.

Saddle up

Guess what I did today? Come on. Guess! Guess!

Started washing the kitchen cupboards but then got distracted by fly poop and ended up scrubbing the kitchen ceiling? Nope, that was yesterday. Enjoyed a visit from a cousin-in-law, I mean, friend whom I have recently discovered that I have a lot in common with, and took pictures of her adorable girls? Unfortunately, no. I'm hacking up a lung so we put that off until next week, bummer. Moved the little bean out of the sun room to her new room upstairs, but only got her dresser moved as far as the dining room? Well, let's see, that would have been three days ago, and still the dresser sits. Retrieved a rubber frog which my three year old attached to the ceiling? Honestly, yes, but that's another story. Put saddles on my chickens?

Say what?

Snake skin patterned fleece fabric which my mother, who is deathly afraid of snakes, purchased.

I swear, I tell no lie. But I do occasionally swear. And come to think of it, I never did pay my mom for that fabric.

CHICKEN SADDLES!!!

There, they say you learn something new every day, and now you have. You're welcome.

Guess who goes riding? Shall we do multiple choice this time?

I've been running in and out of the house all day, trying to get these saddles just right. Too big, too small, and the birds peck and pull them half-off until the saddles are just hanging off their tails. Ugh. It's cold out too, really cold. The dog is cold and gets so excited every time I run in or out of the house. She was that close to tripping me once on my way in with three eggs in my pocket. No, I will probably never learn. Lord knows the kind of mess that could have been. Thank you, Lord, for not allowing the dog to knock me completely over, when I had eggs in my pocket.

That dog weighs almost as much as I do.

I have to make these saddles myself because it's freaking cold out, so there's no time to wait for something wacky like this to come in the mail. AND, do you have any idea whatsoever what something like a "chicken saddle" costs? Honestly, do you? Ridiculous, I'll tell you that much.

So have you figured it out yet? Who goes riding?

THE ROOSTERS!!!

My five year old knows that much. "Mommy, Fritzy just mated with that hen." In his world, I think that's about on the same level as "A truck just drove past". YES people, that's right, the rooster goes riding, well, sort of...

Didn't you ever wonder how birds have sex?

The problem is... yes, there is a problem. I am not saddling up my hens just because I'm bored out of my mind, and have snake skin fleece slithering around the house begging to be cut up. The problem is, there are only ten hens, and two roosters. The roos have their favorites (imagine my husband's most evil laugh here), who end up being mated too often, and... are you still reading?

Would you like to ask yourself why you are still reading?

Anyway... the roosters stomp around on the hens backs causing some of the ladies to have bald patches. It can be a real problem if the hens end up with open sores. When chickens see blood, they go crazy. The more blood, the crazier, and in short time can kill another chicken that has a bloody wound. Baby chicks, especially, can be very cannibalistic.

There, you learned at least two new things today.



Fleece doesn't unravel (ravel?) so this is (should be) an easy, no-sew project. Cut two holes for the wings, and a slit at the bottom for the tail. Plug and play. Or something like that.

We're not to the point of sores (yet), but we're getting temperatures well below zero now. It's going to be getting colder before it gets warmer. Lots colder. I did my research, and these chickens of mine are hardy, cold-weather birds, but not if they have huge patches of naked skin. And anyway, who doesn't love a fleece jacket, when it's ten degrees below zero?



Want to learn something else new?

There is actually such a thing as a chicken diaper. But even I am not about to go there.

Changes

Winter cold is here, and we've been getting settled into some changes.

The kids can't play outside much at all now. The dog, cat and chickens are cold, really cold, you can just tell. The cat reminds me of a grumpy old man. The corn stove fills the house with a constant hmmmmmmmmm... and sends us on an evening ritual of fetching pails of corn from the barn. The fancy car starts, but the old green one refuses.

I can accept that the garden is asleep, and that the car needs to be warmed up before we leave. I don't mind pouring dusty buckets of corn into the stove, so we can avoid using the furnace. I happily go to the coop several times a day, to gather the eggs before they have a chance to freeze. I bundle the kids before we leave the house, even if it takes 20 minutes by the time everyone has been dressed, undressed to go potty, and dressed back up again.

I even have a pile of winter squash in the middle of the kitchen, because I was afraid they would freeze on the basement stairs.

But I also realize now, that I must admit temporary defeat in regard to one thing that I love dearly.


Yeah I know, I'm weird. I love my clothesline. It makes me happy.

A drying rack in front of the corn burner's hot blast of air (yes, in my living room) just doesn't satisfy like the clothesline. Don't get me wrong, I like my clothes drying rack, but I love my clothesline.

A small success

I finally did it, a month and a half later.

It all seemed to be successful, despite my fears. Because, you know, around here our motto could truthfully be "disaster at every turn". It is almost amusing how things turn out well when I have someone else around to watch the kids.

I did can some plum jam last year. Water bath canning is easy. I managed it while one kid was yelling, "Mommy wipe my butt!" and the other was trying to climb the fridge. But pressure canning, now that scares the bejeebers out of me.

I faced my fears, and look what I made!


My oldest boy watched me cut it up. I told him it looked like cantaloupe, and he asked if he could have some. Well, it's not cantaloupe. Goofy kid. My husband thinks it looks like peaches. Mmmmmm... I wish it was peaches. But no, it isn't nearly that exciting.

It's pumpkin, of course. Of the eighteen we had marching up the stairs, only one now remains. I'm tired of them. I'm so glad to see them go. The last lonely one might just get split in half and sent out to the chicken coop.

But it sure looks nice in the jar, doesn't it?