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.

One year later

The moment I saw this:

11-27-2011

I knew I had to go digging for this:

11-26-2010

Makes me wonder what next year's picture will look like?

Our internet is back up to it's regular nearly-intolerable speed, which is a whole lot better than the all-but-unusable mess I earned us these last two weeks. Funny how you appreciate something a whole lot more once it's taken away. I'll be posting here more regularly again. Tomorrow's project: 10 on 10

Pudding, etc.

Do you ever make chocolate pudding for the kids, and then eat every last drop of it (with a spatula) before they ever knew it existed?

Do you ever step out of the shower with a noticeable scratch on your forehead because there was a stiff twig in your shampoo?

Do you ever have a Shakespeare-type tragedy unfold at bedtime? The little brother begins to lift the toilet lid so he can pee, even though you told him to wait until his older brother used it for a step-stool to get up to the counter, so that he could brush his teeth. The big brother reacts in brotherly love by jumping onto it anyway, which smashes the little brother's fingers between the toilet seat and the porcelain bowl. The big kid completes his awkward ballet move by tripping over his little sister, knocking her down while she generally minds her own business.

But it's not over yet.

When told to go into the other room to discuss what just happened, he flops onto the couch in such a manner that he inadvertently kicks you in the nose. Hard.

Do you ever find that the dog has relocated her food bowl, along with a beheaded rat, to the place your front step would be, if you had one?

Have you ever had a day like that?

No?

Really.

Huh.

Yeah, me neither.

Just another chicken story

Another excuse, another chicken story...

Because of a temporary internet handicap, I'm only able to post words at the moment. No pictures.

I made the mistake of participating in a mini-workshop online a few days ago, which involved downloading a 43 page document and listening to a 40 minute audio recording. It might have been the best twenty-five dollars I ever spent, except that... well, this apparently shocking amount of online usage was enough to anger the gods of our satellite internet. They show no mercy, in case you were wondering. We've been soundly spanked and our internet speed reduced to a level that makes good old dial-up look even better than sliced bread.

Unfortunately, dial-up is not an option for us because our dog chewed the line in half.

And I'm not joking either.

Fingers crossed that I can actually upload a few lines of text while that shiny satellite gives me it's middle finger as it zooms past somewhere way up there...

My neighbor stopped by a couple weeks ago and found a random pile of fourteen eggs in my barn. Strange, because I'm in that barn at least twice a day and I had no clue they were there. Stranger still, the dog is in and out of that barn constantly, and she didn't know they were there either.

Today I saw a hen sneak around some scrap metal along the side of our garage. Guess, my friends. Just guess what she was up to? Ah, yes. There was another unauthorized pile of eggs. Eight. One of them was squishy.

A squishy egg. I can't even begin to describe how wrong it felt in my hand.

In the two and a half years I've had this flock, we've been lucky enough to witness some bizarre stuff in the egg-laying-department. We've seen two itty bitty little "fart" eggs, one of which was laid on Easter Sunday. I was nearly bombed by a hen who laid an egg in mid-air. The girls have laid at least two eggs without a shell, just that transparent outer membrane.

But a normal looking egg, the correct size and color and weight... and yet it squished and wiggled and wobbled under my fingers?

No lie.

I'm speechless.

Maybe the girls need a bit more Calcium in their diet?

Orange pumpkins

Three weeks ago, it was still autumn. I should have taken pictures of the kids in their Halloween costumes that day. But of course, we haven't had one afternoon free of first grader homework since then, while the weather was still nice.



We still haven't done it. And I imagine we probably won't. Momtographer fail.

Weather being "nice" is all relative. A month from now I'll wish I had done it today. Maybe, because I've actually typed this, we will. Today. Or attempt to, anyway. Then I'll post them here and make you guys look at them.

And since I'm going to make you look at my pictures... because, after all, this is my blog...

Maybe I'll even post some from our one and only family vacation ever since we had kids. The one we attempted even though it was an insane idea (to put it mildly). The vacation we went on four months ago. Four months. My kids have grown inches since then. I'd bet money on it. You could also bet money that I haven't finished processing my pictures from that vacation (four months ago).

Excuse: The image files are way too big and my computer is way too slow. Painfully slow.

When we got home from that family vacation, it wouldn't have been us who decided that we just couldn't admit failure in the pumpkin growing department. So the first grader and his mother planted a pumpkin from seed even though it was the end of July.

Why? Because we wanted to.

And like the boys always say when I ask them why they've done something stupid, "Just for fun!"

Doesn't everyone plant pumpkins when the end of July rolls around?

So I can tell you the whole truth: It obviously wouldn't be us ridiculously giddy for having orange pumpkins to show for that less-than-sixty-day growing season. Or something like that.

Heck yes. Apparently they can ripen off the vine.

Cloudy

I'm done posting pictures of rainbows and telling stories about the unicorns that live in my barn, and making you gag by lying about how incredibly amazing and wonderful my life has been since the day I had kids. Or do I not do that? Because, yeah. That's really not how it is.

I'm half-tempted to lock this blog down to public readers. Why do I write it? Why do I share my pictures? Who is it for? I'm not sure. Most days I question whether I'm emotionally stable enough to be writing here.

{deleted paragraph where I did nothing but make excuses}

Yesterday's sunrise screamed that the weather was about to change. Bipolar weather. It rained while the sun was shining, snowed briefly, rained, then snowed for ten minutes again. All within half an hour. Fitting.

This morning after the first grader was on the bus, the half-sized cats kicked back outside, the first fire put out fight between the two little kids deferred until later resolved, and the laundry folded... it's not even 8am and there isn't any laundry piled in the living room.

HOORAY!

Anyway, this very strange orange glow caught my eye out the window. Like fire all around.

It looked so weird. There was a heavy bank of clouds and a tiny space where the sun was shining straight across the earth beneath them. Sideways light to the direction the snow was falling. And brilliant fire orange.



That might look like a normal sunrise, but it was long after that sunrise color usually fades.

So it's snowing. Not that it's going to stick around for more than a day or two, but, technically it is snow. I still have to clean out my garlic and plant my chicken coop.

No.

Plant my garlic and clean out the coop. And pull that rag out of the side of the house and squirt some of that expanding foam stuff in there instead. Luckily the hole is too high on the wall for my birds to reach, because:

True: Chickens eat styrofoam and dried expanding foam if they can get to it.

Why?

Their brains are the size of peas. Small peas. I think.

Embarrassing confession: I found my missing camera remote, the one I spent two months searching for. It wasn't in the top of my bedroom closet with that fancy elusive ax. It was in...


well,


I laughed at myself when I found it, because...


I was sure it couldn't be the missing one (for seriously?)


except that it was all scratched up,


like the old one,


so it was pretty immediately obvious that I'm an idiot.


I reached into my camera bag to grab a tube of chapstick for a kid while I was driving, and came out with the remote in my hand. My kids grandmothers: we were going like two mph on a gravel road with no one else in sight, don't freak. The kid laughed. It makes perfect sense that my husband stole it, strategically waited until I'd purchased new ones, and then planted it back in my bag.

Right?

Sometimes I wish I was that delusional.

56. Enough pockets in a camera bag.
57. Three remotes.
58. Chapstick.
59. Sunrise.
60. A chicken so funky the furnace guy asked, "WHAT is that?"
61. Successful attack on the laundry, despite help from The Bean.
62. French toast made from homemade cinnamon bread.

Wild Bean

An afternoon spent in town resulting in a way-too-late nap for the Bean

(Really, what was I thinking?)

Plus

Exhausted boys in bed at their regularly scheduled time

Equals

Way crazy stuff at hours this house is normally very quiet

.....

To be perfectly honest

It was an awful lot of fun