It Happened At Night -

Finally it happened at our house. When I went out to feed Sadie the Cat and Max the Dog at about 5:45 a.m., I saw the toilet paper hanging from our trees (the photo on the right is the view from the porch out towards the front gate. The other photo is what our house normally looks like). It was a beautiful job - in fact, with all of the trees around, I've often thought that our house would be the perfect candidate for an epic teepee. But, of course, Max the Dog lives out there, and would surely alert us of any hanky-panky, since he lives to bark at joggers, UPS men, and all kinds of critters. As I gazed at the strands, which had gotten moist from the night's fog and had then semi-frozen in place, I could imagine the perpetrators' glee as they realized they were in teepee wonderland.

....Have I mentioned that we have a dog? Yep - and a big, black, scary-looking one at that. And, he barks. A lot. But not that night. The dog that knows when someone is driving down the street with a dog in their car, and lets us know about it, chose to stay inside his doghouse, on the front porch, and sleep, instead of letting us know that our house was being strewn with paper (four days later, and after one rainstorm, there are still pieces of it twenty feet up in the tree tops). My first emotion that morning wasn't anger, but was extreme disappointment in my dog. What was he thinking? What was he doing? What had he eaten earlier that night to put him in some kind of apparent food coma? Shame, shame, shame.

We wondered who could have done it, but not for long - at 7a.m. Jason got the news that it was two junior high girls from down the street (why was this not a surprise?). That made me feel just the tiniest bit better - at least Max the Dog hadn't ignored a car or vehicle pulling up in front. Ironically, as I am typing this, that dog is barking at a group of cyclists heading down the road. What a dog!

We've Been Just a Little Bit Busy....

I can't believe it's almost February! We have gone from one event to the next in 2011. Jason finished up his soccer season by playing on the all-star team and being the leading goal-scorer, and has moved on to basketball season. Grace has been cheering at high school basketball games, and over the weekend went to the Winter Formal, which she also helped plan and decorate. Jamey has been keeping cars running, trying to keep the roof from leaking - again, cutting and trimming the yard (we are having spring-like weather and the poor plants are confused), and doing his 'regular job' down at Cal Poly. And as for me, well, I've been doing stuff too. I decided to read a book along with Grace (it's an assignment for her Honors English class) and it took me two weeks to finish. The book is Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (over ONE THOUSAND pages!), and while it was very interesting, I'm glad I'm finished, because while I was in the middle of it, my library called to tell me that the book I had placed on hold had come in. That book is Novella Carpenter's Farm City, about her adventures in urban farming - much more up my alley (and a mere 269 pages). She talks about raising chickens and turkeys, recycling, hippies, growing tomatoes.....hmmm, familiar!

Along the same lines, I've been to two 'Wild-At-Heart Farmgirl' meetings this month. I even recruited my sweet friend Heather to join. She is a true farm girl at heart - just look at the amazing cards she made me for Christmas! (top photo) And, last summer, she and her family moved to a new house not-really-but-kind-of-so they could have a place for chickens, and now she has four laying hens. This past Monday, we went to Theresa's house in Grover Beach, walked down the street to the monarch butterfly grove (they winter there, about 20,000 of them, from all over) and then learned to make yo-yo's. Not the Duncan, walk-the-dog yoyo, but the grandma's quilt-type yoyos. It was quite a victory for me, because it required sewing and I don't sew. Fortunately, that is not a required skill to join the farm girls. We made heart-shaped Valentine pins (see above photo), but also got ideas for canning lids, greeting cards, Christmas ornaments, and all kinds of yoyo things. And I have to say, I may not know how to sew, but I did pick out some pretty cool fabric! And now I have something else to do in all of my nonexistent free time!

Merry Christmas!

I know that Christmas is over but I thought I'd share a few photos from ours...as you can see from the picture of our Christmas tree, we again got way more presents than we need or deserve. I generally spend much of the holidays feeling 'overly-blessed', even spoiled, by all of the gifts, cards, food options, and family members I have. This is magnified even more when we spend time in other countries, like we did this past summer.

Then there are my kids....like Grace in the photo of us in our Christmas finery (it rained a lot this year so we opted for the stylish black). I read the Christmas story from Luke many times in December, but always, always, when I get to the part in Luke 1 subtitled 'Mary's song', where she calls herself the most blessed of all women, I inevitably think, "Well, maybe, for back then, but she didn't have my family," for I do consider myself the most blessed mom of them all. Over this Christmas break, Grace is going on a mission trip to help homeless people in LA. And as a Christmas gift to his sister, Jason gave a donation to FeedMyStarvingChildren.com that will feed 75 kids in Africa a warm, nutritious meal. I know that getting to be the mom of Jesus was an amazing, unique blessing, but I'm just saying, I wouldn't trade this family for anything, and I think they're pretty hard to beat!

To keep me humble, I've added a photo of one final Christmas tradition - the annual burning of the wrapping paper in our barrel. Jamey noticed the white-trashiness of it, especially since you can see the trailer and canvas garage in the background. It started as a chance to keep the recycling bin from overflowing, and when the kids discovered that foil paper 'makes pretty colors', it stayed as an annual event. Like I said, it keeps me humble....

I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas, and, like me, you have had a chance to reflect on your blessings - I'm sure there are some, and it's good to count them as we head into the new year.

Neighborhood Birds

Lately we've had ducks wintering in our creek, and a flock of wild turkeys (probably about 30 total) hanging out in our neighbor's field in the early morning hours. I love seeing them when I take Jason to school. Yesterday I took Max The Dog down to see them, and he did absolutely nothing. Not even a sniff or a double-take. Pretty disappointing. Lazy, lazy dog! Although it was hard to see in the fog, I did notice that one turkey didn't quite look the same as the others. The tail was longer. It was confusing, until I realized that it wasn't a turkey at all! It seems my neighbor's peacock had crossed the street to hang out with some birds more his size (he normally lives in a yard with all chickens, and mostly bantams at that!). Later on, when the turkeys had gone back over to the pasture where they spend their afternoons, I saw that the peacock was back in his own yard, strutting around like the big man he is. And this morning, he was in the field again, an honorary member of the flock, hangin' with his turkey friends. It made me smile - I was happy for him. Maybe they swap stories about their different lives. Maybe he likes to show the ladies his fancy tail. Maybe he just enjoys being around large birds for a change. I don't know why I find all of this so entertaining....maybe it's from reading all of those "Mother West Wind" books when I was little.

Our Thankful List

On this cold, beautiful Thanksgiving, it's a good thing to make a list of all of the things we are thankful for. Actually, it's good to do this any day of the year....

10. Every day when I drive to Cal Poly, or to the store, or to the high school, or anywhere, I drive past trees and scenes like the one pictured above. Amazing!

9. My neighbors, this year, have shared walnuts, fruit and vegetables, books, knowledge about making feta cheese, tree-trimming skills, and gardening hours with each other, among other things. Most recently, they purchased about 500 dollars worth of cookie dough from Grace for a cheerleading fundraiser. They are generous and cool.

8. This summer we got to travel to El Salvador, which is a beautiful place, and meet some of the sweetest, kindest people in the world, and whom we now count as friends. And Jamey and I are heading back next week for another quick visit.

7. For dinner today, we got to choose from dozens and dozens of options and combinations (yams with pecans, or yams with marshmallows? green salad, or green beans?), causing us to be thankful for the plentiful food that we enjoy.

6. My parents are here to visit, and Jamey's parents are with his sister (they will come here for Christmas) - what a blessing to celebrate holidays with all of the grandparents!

5. It rained over the weekend.....and our roof didn't leak!

4. Found at Ross this month: 6 Johnson Brothers "His Majesty" turkey plates for $2.50 each. What a deal!

3. My brother made his second trip down from Portland this year to celebrate Thanksgiving with us. He is definitely a crowd favorite!

2. Our kids amaze us every day with their character, intelligence, humor, insight, and abilities. We are their biggest fans and can't believe how awesome they are.

1. While making this list, I realized that I could make it 100 times longer and still have things for which to be thankful (there, I made it grammatically correct that time). There seems to be no end to our blessings!

And for all of these things and so much more, we are very, very thankful!

NUTS!!

The walnuts have started raining down upon us, which means that it truly now is fall. We are having a bumper crop this year in the neighborhood. My amazing neighbor Monica has 5 acres of walnuts and you wouldn't even believe how many 10-gallon buckets she has harvested, given away, etc. People are actually coming from all around just to pick up all of the walnuts in her yard. Three varieties, and here's how much I know: one kind is "round", one kind is "very small", and the third kind looks a lot like a small brain. In our back yard we have one wonderful English walnut tree. It's the one right out the back door...the one that Max and I guard with vigor all year for these moments (see Pappas Clan vs Squirrels on 8/15/08 for that story). As soon as the nights drop down to about freezing, the walnuts begin dropping, and each morning I go out and collect them. The first couple of days, I could hold them in my hands, but for the past week I've had to use a 4-gallon bucket, or the large basket pictured above, because there are so many. My master gardener neighbors tell me that we are getting so many walnuts because it was so rainy last winter, but I have been pretending to be Annie Oakley since I was a child, so I like to think that some of our bumper crop is because of my sharp-shooting abilities with the squirrels.

The walnuts must then be shelled, which, I have discovered, is a good thing to do while you are watching Steelers games on television, and stored, which I do in 1-gallon Ziploc freezer bags, of which I am currently on my fifth. Wow, it is a good year for nuts!

Here are some of the things I do with walnuts:

Roast them with butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon to use in salads, pumpkin bread, cinnamon bread, all kinds of bread, muffins, or to eat by the handful.

Pasta with roasted broccoli and walnuts (recipe from realsimple.com - note: any magazine called "Real Simple" is my kind of magazine!)

Make candied walnuts to give away as Christmas gifts (there's a good recipe at allrecipes.com)

At our house, walnuts can also be used as tiny dog treats, and as a treat that can lure 5 unruly chickens back into the coop - the girls will come running from all over the yard if they hear me cracking a walnut shell. That's how we entertain ourselves in the neighborhood.

One Of These Pumpkins Is Not Like The Others...

These are most of the pumpkins that we got out of the garden this year. There's another one that stayed on the back deck because it is very heavy, and I was too lazy to pick it up and move it. And there's another one out in the garden that looks like a rectangle, and is a little gooey on one side. Too unattractive for the front porch, alas. Of this bunch, the pumpkin on the far right is about the size of Jason's basketball, so we have some nice big ones this year. And the one on the far left, well, it actually isn't even a pumpkin. One of my neighbors gave us all what she thought were baby butternut squash plants. But to my dismay, when the squash started growing, they turned out to be 'gold ball squash' - they don't store well, and they basically taste just like zucchini when they are cooked, and we had a million zucchini, so this was about the last kind of squash we wanted.

Now, according to the UC Davis web site (which is where we go for 99 percent of our agriculture questions), a gold ball squash should be picked when it is 'the size of a baseball'. But since we were tired of squash, we decided to see just how big one of these bad boys would get. So we left it for a couple of months past its prime, and, tada! A giant, slightly lopsided, pumpkin-y looking yellow squash!