Peanut butter balls

Once in awhile we like to make something that is extra fun. Fun to make, and fun to eat! It's high protein and very calorie dense, perfect for my skinny kids.


I dare say they're at least much fun as play doh. We make them into balls, or squares, or snakes... or even frogs and cats. Then, we roll around in them roll them around. Finally, we eat them!

The last time we made them, we were snowed in the house and needed some entertainment.

We made them even more exciting. How is that possible?

With CHOCOLATE!


Was it rude of me to post that photo?

I'm terribly sorry.*

Don't lick your computer screen. Go make your own Peanut Butter Balls!

First, mix together 2 cups of peanut butter, 2 cups of powdered milk and one cup of honey. Second, roll into small balls (or penguins or whatever you want) and roll in crushed cornflakes (we use wheat germ). Third, add chocolate chips if you're feeling crazy and bored, like we were. Fourth, don't blame me if they make you fat, I did warn you!

*not really

Un-decorating the driveway

Upon arriving at our humble home, you will be greeted by our big dog.

She may not think you're cool.

I love her.

Just this winter, she has decided that she doesn't like to do her business in the snow. I have no idea why the snow is so different this year.

It means you will also be greeted by a row of big frozen turds lining our driveway.


They're fairly well spaced, and the row is almost straight.

Rather impressive!

But that lovely photo is deceiving. They're not just frozen turds. Oh no! They are frozen turds in waiting. Waiting patiently in line.

I took that photo earlier this week. Guess what? This morning their destiny arrived. They wait no longer!

Exactly how far do you think a snow blower can throw a frozen turd?

What about a whole row of them?

One by one they met their glorious destiny, and flew thirty feet through the air!

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.

You Capture - Love around your home

I almost didn't participate in this week's You Capture. The assignment was to photograph things you love around your home. I'm just not a material girl. If my house burned, assuming we all got out safely, I think all I would be really sad to lose are my recipes and pictures of my babies.

I'm upset because the ONE thing that is absolutely, truly loved above all other things in this house... I was not given permission to photograph. Waaaaa! And we have another winter storm headed our way. Bleh.

So as I was being grumpy, I grabbed my camera and stomped around the house.

My beautiful, blood-red stand mixer has earned it's place on my counter top. I use it all the time. Yeah, I guess I love it.


I put hours and hours (and hours) of work into this charcoal. I'm pretty proud of it. An art teacher in college challenged me to do it. So I did.

My Dad made the frame for it. I remember stopping in at his shop asking him to make it, and that I needed it in two days for my class, and knowing he had a million other things to do... he did it for me anyway.


I love my camera because it gave me a swift kick in the butt, and got me learning and dreaming and being creative.


I think this frame is so cool. I loved it enough to buy it (and I rarely buy things). I found it shortly after my first child was born. With my colicky newborn wrapped up snug in a sling, I wore him as I walked, and came across a tiny little antique store.

It's so awesome it could destroy all other frames just by being so freaking cool, if it wanted to.


I smile every time I see these chickens because they belonged to my Grandma, and I remember her telling me the story of how she came to own them. I miss her.


The little bean has a love for this, a blanket that my Great Aunt made for her. When she finds it, she smiles as it hypnotizes her and she...


...collapses on top of it with her thumb safely in her mouth.


What is the one thing that is loved above all other items in this house? What is the one thing that MUST be rescued in case of fire?

New Kitty. The world's most loved stuffed cat, which looks anything but new. It looks LOVED, all the way loved. Part of it used to be white. Part of it used to have fur. All of it used to be fluffy. It defines the word LOVE.

This morning I asked my five year old if I could take pictures of his New Kitty.

"Yeah... no... NO!"

I was curious, and hoping he would relent, asked him why.

"Because New Kitty is sleeping, and the noise of your camera will wake her up. New's been playin' for a hundred days and a hundred nights, and she's sooooo tired, and you can't wake her up. If you wake New up, she'll be really, really hungry. She'll be soooo hungry that if she sees food she'll just run right over there and eat it up."

"ROARRRRR!"

I asked him if I might wake New up gently, feed her some fish, and then take her picture.

"NO! You have to let her sleep. She's hiding and you can't find her."

So even though this post is sorely incomplete without New, there is not a gosh darned thing I can do about it.

Sorry people, I tried.

Head over to Beth's to see more You Capture.

The excess toilet

This is not a bathroom.


You're looking at that photo in disbelief, aren't you?

Believe me, it is not a bathroom. It needs a door.

We learned that when were in the midst of selling our last home.

By definition (whichever one mattered at the time) a bathroom must have a door. You know, a door for privacy.

Lucky for us, it didn't have to be a very secure or very private door. A few dollars for a cheap curtain and rod and we were approved to sell. (The main bathroom did have a working, solid wood door. It was the second bathroom which was having an identity crisis.)

I'm sure the new owner was thrilled.

Around here, it really doesn't matter if a bathroom has a door or not. There is no privacy with young children about. I couldn't tell you the last time I pooped alone. However, it is on the list of things I hope to do again someday when my children are older. What a list! I should write about it sometime.

This is only a toilet.


Too bad, because otherwise I might be able to say it was the fastest bathroom my husband ever built. I was rather impressed. Not the best bathroom he ever built, but certainly the fastest. That must count for something?

I was the first one to use it.

Now that must surely count for something?

I used it because someone had parked himself on the other one.

My three year old has issues. One of his issues is that he sometimes needs to sit on the toilet for awhile before he can get his poop out. It doesn't seem to be a real problem for him, or anything, just that he sits.

Well, it is a problem in that we only have had one toilet in the house, and there are five of us.

Alright, there are only four of us that use the toilet. But still!

That child will sit there, for something like an hour or longer... almost every day. Yeah, I give him prunes for lunch a few times a week. He loves them and thinks they're just the coolest thing ever, besides gummy worms. Doesn't seem to matter though.

If I am so rude as to bother this child and ask him if he is finished sitting there on his throne, he waves me away with his hand like some snobby royal prince, while commanding, "AWAY!".

Seriously, I have no idea where he got that from.

This is toilet paper.


My five year old was given the task of obtaining several rolls of paper for our shiny new toilet. He was so thrilled, you would think it was the greatest honor we could have bestowed upon him. His level of excitement went far beyond his level of involvement in the project. (He did help install the dumb thing.)

I was minding my own business doing dishes (which usually has nothing to do with a toilet) when he suddenly appeared beside me.

"MOMMY!!! I saw the parts on the inside of the tank that makes it flush! And it flushes really, really, really good! And when it flushes it goes KASHOOOOOOOOOOSH! And there was a leak! But Daddy tightened it up and now it's fixed! And Daddy wants me to bring him TWO ROLLS OF TOILET PAPER!"

Just as quickly as he appeared, he was gone.

Have I mentioned we don't have a television and tend to be rather easy to entertain?

Anyway...

We had to put in a second bathroom toilet in preparing to fix the gashed sewer pipe which I mentioned in this post. Remember?

One hundred dollars for a toilet in the middle of my basement. It was the cheapest one. I would rather have spent one thousand dollars for ten toilets and sent them to Haiti, along with a good plumber and a backhoe and pipes and whatever else they need to make them work.

At the moment, I'm feeling guilty about my second toilet. Yeah, we need it while we repair the big pipe, but how long will that take?

The truth is, it is excess, and we already have so much more than we need.

The sad thing is, after some time, most of the world is certain to forget about what happened in Haiti.

My hope is that this extra toilet will remind me of how much I have, remind me of how blessed I am, remind me to give and pray.

My hope is that I will remember that somewhere, someone is hurting.

Oh yeah, and I hope this toilet (since it does happen to be in the middle of my basement) does flush really, really good. Because the truth is, an excess toilet will probably be a useful thing to have.

Get it off

While the little bean napped, I heard a very quiet whisper...

"Mommy, get it off."

It came from the boys' bedroom.

Then I heard soft footsteps headed toward me, and again...

"Mommmmmmmy, pleeeeeeeease get it off."

It was my littlest boy, and he was coming down the stairs.

"Mommy. Help me. Mommy, get it off."

And then I saw him. I giggled, and reached for my camera.

Some kids put peas up their noses.

Some kids swallow coins.

A friend once took her daughter to the clinic because she had reason to believe the child had put turkey in her ear.

We have a toy called Bug Bonz, and he had gotten a bit creative with the container.


Ohmygoodness.


And seriously, that thing was stuck tight!


He was trying to scratch at his ears.

I thought maybe I was a bad mom for taking pictures instead of helping him immediately.


If you think his left ear was bad, check out his right!


It was really, really stuck.

"Mommy can you get it off?"


"Get it off!"

And we did.

Frosting

It was beautifully warm yesterday, for mid-January. We made it above freezing, and the sun was shining.

The boys played in the deep snow, while the dog found all that snow useful and dug like a badger.

The kids thought it was hilarious.

The chickens actually came down the path from the barn, scratched around and otherwise generally caused mischief. It was the probably the first time in a month that I have seen them wander away from the barn.

When I locked the chickens up late in the evening, the air was crisp and cold again.

Before I went to bed I glanced out the window.

There was a thick fog swirling past. I could see it in the glow our yard light casts on the barn. Doesn't fog usually just sit? Well, this stuff was on the move. All mysterious and good for a horror movie kind of fog.

I smiled because I knew exactly what it meant.

It meant we would wake up to a sparkling magical world, where the frost is as thick as the fog had been.


My oldest boy said, "Look Mommy, it snowed!".

I told him that even though it looked like snow, it wasn't. He already knew that. He was leading me right into a joke.

He giggled, "I want to eat that frosting!"


It was beautiful.


Maybe we should have tasted it.