Playing with my food

My kitchen reeks of basil. After being immersed in it for a few days, I'm convinced that it starts to smell rather like skunk after awhile. Or perhaps my nose is just overwhelmed and confused after our weekend excitement.

At any rate, lots and lots of fresh basil is a very good thing.



Oh, yeah. And sweet red pepper too. Did I mention the red pepper?

Red peppers make me exceedingly happy and awfully grumpy too. I can't grow a red pepper to save my life. Frost arrives way too early in my mysterious sunken swamp of a garden for any green pepper aspiring to turn red. But there are worse problems to have in life, so I just admit defeat and buy them at the store. You know, like normal people do.

But you can't buy basil that looks this good at the store.



I slapped some mayonnaise on a flour tortilla, and sprinkled it with cayenne pepper. Dangerous, I know. I like to be reckless with my food.



Then I pushed some basil leaves into the mayo. Squish. Squish. Squish. I got so excited I nearly dropped my camera.



Next I topped my artwork with slices of smoked turkey and the glorious red pepper.



I'm not done playing with my food until I've rolled it up and stuck a knife in it a few times. And then I hauled it off across the room looking for different light.



And you see what happens?



A basil thief!



When she's not busy knocking chairs over, sneaking things out of the locked cupboards, or climbing onto the counters... she steals my basil.

You Capture - "In the kitchen"

I kept thinking the You Capture theme this week was "In the chicken". Kitchen, chicken, kitchen, chicken... perfectly reasonable, right? I entertained the thought of being completely annoying and just running with it, but I had technical difficulties.

I can't find my axe.

It could have been very educational. Do you have any idea where a boy chicken's testicles are located? Hmmmm?

When sharpshooting goes bad

My husband stuck his head in the house and hollered, "Is your coop open?"

I didn't answer right away because I was busy thinking (and making pancakes). Why in the world would he ask me that? My chickens were puttering around the yard doing their thing, so obviously the coop was open. But since we have such great communication around here, I played it safe. Perhaps a gust of wind had blown the coop door shut. Or something. And why would he care anyway?

"It should be open", were the words that I chose gently, very much the way you would pick raspberries off the cane.

Then all things were made known to me.

"There is a skunk in the shop."

"In the shop?"

"Yes, in the shop."

Concise and clear, with no room for error. Such a beautiful thing.

A cupboard door slammed and I heard that metallic "ka-chink". He had my gun.

{if you don't like the type of story that involves a skunk and a gun, you would do well to end today's visit to the farm now... you've been warned}

It was my turn to yell. "Be sure it's not a cat!" I put my spatula down, swung my baby onto my hip and followed him out the door.

{insert some banjo diddly here... and have I mentioned we have nothing but mud in front of the house right now, along with the flattened remnant of my once beautiful flower bed?}

Okay, so it was something. Not a gust of wind, but rather similar in a way if the occasion was right. And people, you already know the occasion was so right that it was going to be very very wrong.


{a raspberry that has nothing to do with my story}

I raced off to the barn to be sure my chickies weren't under skunk assault, since all kinds of metal things were at the same moment apparently fighting for their lives in the shop. All was well. The bird-brains were oblivious to the drama as usual. Life in a shell. First literally and then figuratively.

Just then Pepe le Pew meandered out the shop door, and I witnessed my expert marksmanship former Marine husband drop to his knee while simultaneously firing a single shot. He made it look effortless. I was impressed. It would be an understatement of magnificent proportions to say that his form was better than mine when I shot a bad little skunk two years ago.

However, my aim was better.

It went back into the shop and the Marine was left pacing back and forth on the driveway with my shotgun, debating his next move. Firing inside the shop without eye protection was not an option.

It was interesting and everything, so I went back into the house. I found our boys running around the kitchen with their pancakes, like little wind-up crumb dispensers.

"Is Daddy still alive?"

"Yep. He's standing out there looking very grumpy."

They were bouncing off the walls. "Can we see him? Is the skunk dead? Mommy can we see Daddy? Did he shoot the skunk? Mommy! MommyMommyMommy!"

I moved my pancake batter bowl and put them both, with pancakes in hand, on the kitchen counter with a window facing the farmyard. An eternity later A few minutes later I heard the front door swing open, but I couldn't hear the words that accompanied it. I was sort of curious to say the least.

"What?"

And then I smelled him.

The boys scrambled down from their perch and met him at the border of the demilitarized zone baby gate that blocks our entryway. Our hero had already discarded his clothes at the door. The air was filled with a nearly electric excitement, along with a stench that burned my eyes and made me gag.

It was our oldest boy, always the thinker, who surveyed the scene and made the whole event priceless.

"Daddy", he demanded, "How grumpy are you?"

I'm not sure I've ever giggled and gagged that hard at the same time.

Luckily, it wasn't a direct hit. Two showers later their Daddy was cleared to spend the night indoors.

In a way, the whole ordeal reminded me of THIS...


Although that time the battle was less stinky to say the least.

An after-church cucumber

Sometimes the life of our Bean is just plain old rough. Especially when she has tried so very hard (and failed) to sit quietly through church without beating her older brothers up. It's hard not to. I totally understand.

It's way past nap time.

It's one of those Sundays when everyone loiters around outside after the service. Small talk about the weather, the crops, the gardens. My boys are crawling through the dirt catching small slimy creatures.

The Bean is hungry.

But today is special. She won't starve. Someone brought cucumbers to church.

Yes, this will do. It will do nicely.














Linking up with Summer's Simple Things with my new friend Kim, The Inadvertent Farmer. Go check her site out. Why? The woman is hilarious. And, she has a camel. For real.





Now I want a camel.

I'm also using this post for my You Capture - "Everyday things". Even though it isn't every day the little Bean munches on a cucumber in the car, this is exactly the type of thing that makes up my every day with these kiddos. The kind of wacky every day thing I don't ever want to forget.

My secret weapon: Back button focus

If it was asked during the final round of Jeopardy, while I stood there beneath the bright lights, my heart pounding within my chest, that little tune flying over my head... I would have it. Game over!

A handful of you have asked. Unfortunately, it's really more than a one word answer. Even worse, if I was actually on Jeopardy, I would be more likely to wet myself than remember my own name.

Remind me not to try out for Jeopardy.

On the other hand, I'm really quite flattered you guys think my self-portraits have such crisp focus. Because really they don't, but I only post low-res stuff online because I'm tricky like that so you'll never know the truth.

My non-photography friends might want to bail now. This one is going to get technical. I also need to apologize to my friends who use Point and Shoot cameras. I believe the following will only apply to a dSLR, but you can take the basic concept and make it work (with a bit more work).

The trick to nailing your focus in a shallow depth of field self-portrait is really quite simple. With the camera immobilized, you need to pre-lock your focus where you want it to land, have some reference point for where that location is, and then actually manage to get yourself into that same plane equidistant from the camera.

Back button focus to the rescue!

Find your camera manual and change your focus function from the half-click of the shutter button to the back * (star) button. Manual focusing might work too, although it's not likely to be as accurate. The goal here is to separate the focus and shutter functions, which is an amazingly beautiful thing.

I shoot exclusively with back button focus. In photography, more control is always better.

In this shot, with the camera secured on a tripod, I used my farthest right focal point and the back * button to lock focus on the bent nail that you'll notice just to my left in the photo.



Then, shooting with the camera's self-timer, I was very deliberate in getting my hands and face into that same plane equidistant from the camera. That sweet spot where I knew the sharpest focus would fall, because I took control and told my camera what to do.

Also, since I had the focus locked in, I could shoot away without having to worry about re-focusing between shots. That, my friends, is priceless.

Where I'm in the yard, I pre-locked my focus on a toy that was taller than the grass. Then I moved the toy and dropped a leaf in it's place to mark the spot. I am so very sneaky.



See? Easy peasy!

Manual focusing can do the trick too. It's especially useful in low light situations, like at one o'clock in the morning when you decide to climb your windmill for a really kick-butt self-portrait, and your camera says, "I can't focus, I just can't. It's too dark. I'm too tired. The dog's breath is too stinky".

So you sigh, wipe your camera's butt set the focus manually, take a few test shots and then throw caution to the wind (literally).



Now don't judge too harshly, that one was a half-second exposure. You can see my hair and shirt blowing in the wind if you look closely. However, the windmill itself is pretty crisp, if I do say so myself.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment or e-mail me. I'll try my best not to wet my pants.

Facing Myself - August linky

Every time this happens, I am filled with wonder. I might as well be a four year old clutching my Christmas present, the biggest and most brightly wrapped gift that was underneath the tree. Except, this one is decorated with poop, but really that doesn't matter.

I sit in the barn and stare at it, completely in awe of what has taken place. Of what is taking place.



It's already loud, but I can't help myself. I have to hold it to my ear.



It quivers and quakes in my hands, the strong shell that close to splitting in two as the chick struggles against it, fighting for it's life.



Unbelievable!




For details on the Facing Myself Challenge, click HERE. The linky is open through the end of August. I had a grand plan for my self-portrait this time around, but got distracted by these new babies of ours.

Summer days

This summer, our days are overflowing with...

the sound of five fans moving air throughout our almost-miserably-hot home,



a Bean who wears nothing but her diaper, all day and night,

a boy catching two tiny frogs, keeping them safe until bedtime when he sets them free, and then doing the same thing again the next day, and the next day, and the next...



a mom who says "don't slam the door", followed immediately by doors slamming shut,

abandoned shoes and dirty feet,



a happy gardener foraging for her breakfast (I could easily be vegetarian all summer),


{okay, the red pepper didn't come from my garden, yet}

baby chicks, ten more due to hatch this weekend,

and a whole lot of squishy squishy mud.

You Capture - "Summer"

What to do with swiss chard

Last year I was the kale lady.

This year someone tilled all my kale seedlings up. In his defense, he did get rid of the weeds too. The weeds needed to go. The kale was an unfortunate victim in this ongoing saga of proper communication that we have going on around here.

Apparently.

On the other hand, most of the swiss chard survived the horror-filled early Spring tilling event. Lucky me!

Now what the heck do you do with swiss chard?

I've never grown it before. It just looked so pretty in the Seed Savers Exchange catalog that I couldn't help myself. The garden porn got me again. I'm helpless when it comes to that stuff, I swear.

Especially when it's a certified organic heirloom variety.

Somebody shoot me.



Anyway, not to worry about it going to waste. Chickens to the rescue, of course!

There I stood, courageous, with chard in hand, mere moments before the pack of starving raptors descended upon me. They look so innocent, but believe me, they are not. Just ask my mother-in-law.



Okay, I'm kidding. Except not the part about my mother-in-law (bless her heart, as she would say).

Just look at that adorable fuzzy butt!



Since you're dying to know, my shirt says, "plastic bags blow", which is something that I believe with my whole heart.



You would never guess it, but I had two jalapenos in my pocket during this feeding frenzy. Jalapenos have better luck in my pockets than eggs do, especially when they've been forgotten for several days.

Don't give me that look.



I really wish I had a couple sheep to mow my lawn. These birds just aren't getting very far with it.

And actually, I do plan to eat some of this chard myself. I'll let you know how it goes.