Hot, Wet, Hot, Wet
July 31, 2009 at 1:09 am | In Chickens, Cookery, Family, Gardening, Housekeeping (or Lack Thereof), Uncategorized | 3 Comments
Seems everyone is having weather woes, and here in New Jersey it’s been torrential rains, revolting humidity, and freak tornadoes and storms. We were lucky to have just one tree down in our yard (and not a beloved tree), but many of our neighbors had full mature trees uprooted. It’s been quite spectacular driving around and seeing it all. The upside of our fallen tree is that it has become, of course, a piece of playground equipment for us! We’ve all had so much fun walking up and down it that we want to make a little obstacle course for the kids. Every time the kids play in our yard like this (hitting sticks against a tree, for example) and they look a bit grubby I feel like they are Appalachian kids and we now have an Appalachian playground.
Our corn got knocked down again yesterday. It must be very frustrating being a corn farmer! Paul thinks that their corn grows closer together so it doesn’t tip over so easily as ours. I’m hoping we’ll be able to eat some corn soon. In the meantime we just picked a bunch of lovely tomatoes. (and update: for dinner I cooked a couple with basil, garlic, zucchini, and had it with pasta.)
The day’s haul:
The brown hens are all laying now, which means we are getting maximum egg output: 9 eggs a day! (two of those eggs go to my friend who actually owns two of the brown hens). As I’ve mentioned the comets’ eggs are small and dark brown, but they are getting larger. Today two of their eggs were the size of the black hens’!
Last night I stepped outside and felt something wet on my shirt. My immediate reaction was, “SLUG!” and then I thought “that’s a stupid thing to think-how would a slug get up on your shirt? why not think just wet spot from hand washing or a booger from a kid (which is also gross, but more likely)?” I looked down and apparently my instincts were spot on because it was a teeny tiny slug.
Nothing has made me feel quite so old-fashioned/housewifey/homesteady as this: this week we began line drying our clothes. I’ve wanted to for a while since I read constantly about how the electric clothes dryer really uses so much electricity. I couldn’t figure out a good place for a clothesline, though. A broken fan belt of the dryer force me into action. With two wet loads of mildewing laundry I had to go out to Home Depot and buy a clothespole (and my request for one seemed to cause a lot of confusion-is it really such an odd thing??). I was delighted with the results. The clothes dried way faster than I would have thought and I got three loads dried and folded before we had yet another storm that made everything soggy and wet and knocked the pole over. With pole repaired I headed out again today. It’s definitely not a speedy process but there was something inantely soothing about hanging each piece of clothing (and strategically arranging the underwear on the inside lines so no one sees it, as well as distributing the weight evenly) just so. I have to say I’m enjoying it.
Went to the beach yesterday:
Tonight Pippin was barking and barking and it turns out it was at this lovely large Toad:
Great summer days!
Mama, what’s an iron?
August 26, 2008 at 11:11 pm | In Housekeeping (or Lack Thereof) | 1 CommentHere’s a good example of my less than stellar housewifeliness: 
Today Clark and I were going to do a fuse-beads art project. I explained that after the beads were arranged we would iron them to melt them together. And he actually asked me what an iron is. I guess that tells you how often I iron our clothes.
Back from Vacation
August 18, 2007 at 12:35 pm | In Basic Musings, Housekeeping (or Lack Thereof) | Leave a CommentWell, we are back from a lovely trip to Lakewood, OH. The name of the town might indicate that it is near a lake. And surely a glance at a map or a rudimentary knowledge of geography (knowing it is a suburb of Cleveland) would have clued us in to the fact that we’d be on Lake Erie. 
However, somehow this never occurred to my husband or me, so we were tremendously pleasantly surprised to find our hosts’ house a mere 2 blocks from the vast lake. Like every other person who sees a Great Lake for the first time we both blurted out “you can’t see the other side!” It was really quite nice and our son loved playing in the water. Upon seeing the lake for the first time he said “Where all that big water come from?” I didn’t know how to begin to answer that! Odd that for people from New Jersey his first trip to the beach this summer was in Ohio. Anyway, the Cleveland area had lots to offer and we really enjoyed it. Our hostess was thrilled with her tin o’ tomatoes and zucchini bread, too.
Then we came home. After staying at someone else’s house you always see your own home with new eyes, don’t you? In this case it meant realizing how messy we are. I’m still sticking with not picking the toys up every night, but perhaps a little more frequently. And I was compelled to mop our kitchen floor right away.
Oh, I didn’t see that…
August 11, 2007 at 10:00 pm | In Basic Musings, Housekeeping (or Lack Thereof) | 2 CommentsI think my husband and I are engaging in contests of who can ignore something longer. The other night I allowed my son to wander around with a box of toothpicks. Yes, I was fine with him taking them all out and dropping the kitchen floor. I then left them there for 2 1/2 days. Two and a half days of scattered toothpicks on the floor!! My husband caved and picked them up last night, so I guess I’ll cave and pick up the booster seat tray which has been under the sideboard for over a week. It’s astonishing how quickly inertia turns to simply not even seeing anymore. Lest you think our house a slovenly pigsty, rest assured that we do take out the garbage and clean our kitchen countertops, and wash dishes and all that. It just these things that fall on the floor or get left on a piece of furniture that become invisible that’s the problem. I swear I’m picking up everything tonight!
What’s for dessert? Pavlova!
August 1, 2007 at 12:13 pm | In Cookery, Housekeeping (or Lack Thereof), Recipes | Leave a CommentI had some friends over yesterday with their kids. While we were watching the kids play we were talking about how a few 2 year olds can make toys end up everywhere. I commented that I’d long given up putting the toys away every day. I believe the others were horrified, as they both said that of course they cleaned up every single day. Well, not me. Instead I choose to spend my time making wonderful and delicious desserts, like this pavlova. 
All summer I’ve been craving this and when I saw the very ripe blackberries in our garden yesterday, I knew the time had come. I took the blackberries and tossed them with blueberries and sliced strawberries and a little sugar and let them sit to get nice and juicy. Heavy cream was whipped right before assembling, and the pavlova was made as follows:
Beat 4 egg whites with a pinch of salt until satiny peaks form. Beat in 1 1/4 c sugar, a third at a time, until the meringe is stiff and shiny. Sprinkle 2 t cornstarch, 1 t white vinegar, and a few drops of vanilla over it and fold in lightly. Mound the meringue into a nice circle on a piece of parchment paper on a baking sheet. Place in a preheated 350 degree oven and immediately reduce the heat to 300 degrees. Bake for 1 hour, then turn the oven off, leaving the meringue to cool completely inside the oven.
To serve pile the meringue with whipped cream and the berries.
This looks fancy and is a lovely dessert for company, but is also pretty simple and a nice treat for yourself as well. I think I would also like to use a few drops almond extract instead of vanilla for a nice almond flavor.
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