Garden Soak

Feeling a little low today so I started the day with a little meditation in my sunroom Mama-Space and then strapped a warm mug of tea to my side to keep my company while I dressed various short people and made breakfast.

But the real pick-me-up was some garden time. God, I miss being out in the garden. Right about the time February is arriving, I am starting to go crazy for a touch of something, anything that's green. The weather was incredibly warm and inviting this morning, a light, misty fog rolling down our hill and an inviting giant mud puddle by the back door waiting for the boys. I took the pruners and some stray yarn (for tying up raspberries), a trowel, some scissors, and a trowel out and I just did...ceaselessly for a little over three hours. Pom rode along on my back, sleeping peacefully through most of my work.

The smell of leaf mold, the damp earth on my knees, mud on my hands, and the sight of all those tiny green tips working their way out of the soil, promised me that this isn't forever...soon we'll be well again, soon there will be spring and soon we can cure our grumpy days with picnics.

Boy, does that sound good!

I feel a lot better.

Summer Bucket List

Whenever I get to midsummer I always feel like things speed up a few notches. Suddenly, everything is a big fuzzy blur full of manic days and kid-filled zaniness. My thumb-in-the-dike plan for stopping the overwhelming urge to cancel everything for the next month is to write a list.

Here's what I am dreaming of doing before the warm weather leaves us, Autumn takes over and Summer has officially "kicked the bucket." Sometimes printing a list like this and putting it on the refrigerator can give you ideas when your family is searching for something to do or when you're trying to remember all the things you wanted to make for dinners while the garden produce was still rolling in.

My Summer Bucket List

1. Make lemonade from scratch
2. Have a picnic
3. Go camping
4. Paint three rooms in the house
5. Harvest our first sweet corn
6. Make fried chicken
7. Attend a Shakespeare in the Park production
8. Catch fireflies in the backyard with the boys
9. Go swimming at the local river swimming hole
10. Make a lemon merengue pie
11. Watch the sunset on a beach
12. Stay up late giggling with my sisters
13. Make my annual plum tart
14. Sell a painting (EEP!)
15. Insulate the attic
16. Make a sand castle
17. Go to the zoo
18. Make ice cream
19. Sing along with The Beach Boys
20. Kiss on a bridge
21. Read a great novel
22. Fall asleep in the grass
23. Blow bubbles in the yard
24. Pick peaches
25. Raise a Monarch caterpillar
26. Make tomato sauce
27. Eat a popsicle on the front steps
28. Make s'mores over a campfire
29. Draw on our sidewalk with chalk
30. Hang our flag out.

So, that's what's on my summer list. Glad I got that off my chest, it's good to write these things down instead of staring at the ceiling in the wee hours telling yourself over and over, "I have to remember to...." What would be on your bucket list?

Poetry Friday: A Mug of Verse

All this snow has created a wild trend for hot drinks in our house (not that we weren't already headed down that road on our own, I'm just saying...) which translates to a lot of hot tea downing and increased hot cocoa consumption in the last few days. 

To top it off, I just finished a fabulous book you should all read on chocolate. Chocolate Unwrapped by Rowan Jacobsen...the long and short of which is...the Meso-Americans were right...chocolate is good for us. I once doubted but, having read an entire, very short book on the subject I'm a believer and will now join A in his nightly dark chocolate tastings. I also encourage you (if you're curious about the book) to check out the review post at The Bonny Glen by the inspiring Melissa Wiley which led me to it in the first place.

And yes, Today is Poetry Friday which means....hot chocolate becomes a poem. Enjoy...and make yourself a mug, you deserve it! :)

Aztec Drink In January

Hot cocoa in my mug
Puffed whipped-cream peak, soft umber in the cup, the glinting handle-arch
Velvet smell of cocoa, comforting whiff of hot milk, acrid scent of glowing burner 

Bubbling whisper in the pan, gurgling cascade pour, chiming ting of whirling spoon
Inviting sweet of sugar, soft round of creamy milk, hint of bitter cacao kick
Toasty heat under the palm, moist twirl of rising steam, warm river down the throat
Hot cocoa in my mug

If you enjoy poetry and want to read more from the other bloggers participating today you can check out the host of Poetry Friday this week, Wild Rose Reader.

Adventures In Zero Oil

We have been running, running, running....wildly, panickedly...our lists fluttering from our back pockets while we stamp out fires and buzz in a labyrinth of manic circles. And then sometime this weekend we remembered to check our oil tank and ordered another round for delivery on Monday morning and then wondered aloud to each other, "Just exactly how serious is that ominous 0 where the needle is hovering?"

Heh. Heh. Heh. And again I say, heh.

Late last night, after dinner was over and the washing up in full swing we began to notice it was oddly chill in the house suddenly. And by the time we were ready for bed we were huddled in blankets in the living room, crammed as tightly together as possible for body heat and I had drunk two full mugs of tea, not bothering with the sugar or cream but just gulping quickly.

We set the space heater up in the boy's room, put an extra layer on the baby, unrolled another quilt for our bed and tucked in. And I swear that there was starting to be frost hovering in the air over our pillows as we switched out the light.

When you wake up in the morning and there is no heat in your house and it is January and you're having a cold snap with a foot of snow on the ground...you have to find a warm place so that the kids can flow from pajamas to clothing to breakfast in relative calm. I lit a fire in the fireplace, dressed kids in front of the bedroom space heater (sweaters, jeans, t-shirts, turtlenecks, sweatshirts, hats etc.) and then plopped the big boys in front of the crackly blaze with blankets while I strapped the baby to my back in a carrier and whipped up breakfast and another mug of tea.

Later as we all ate our breakfast together and we watched the coals settling and snapping as the logs burnt away I thought of my mother as a new bride, watching her dishes shatter from freezing suddenly in her new house without a furnace, or proper doors and walls, just an inefficient woodstove and a lot of hope. Made our pink fingertips and noses seem  quite bear-able. I like to think I would have made a good pioneer woman but truly, I am so kidding myself. I'm soft. I am so glad that the oil man came this afternoon and that right now,  the radiator next to me is kicking it out for all it's worth. I really like automatic heat.

Virtual Cooking Lessons: Potato Soup

Virtual cooking lessons? You bet!

A month or two ago, a friend contacted me long-distance and said that she was thinking fondly about how I'd been cooking mentor to a young pal, but sighing over our geographic separation.  So, she thought she'd broach a crazy idea with me...what about doing basic cooking lessons long distance together?

I thought it it was genius. So, there she and I are on our second month together and A said, "Why not take this live and let others join in?" And here we are. In email form I'll be covering two recipes a month, things I feel should be part of any cook's canon. I've decided to share only one recipe a month here as I don't want to end up with an unwieldy post that leaves you scrolling down for years.

Feel free to observe, cook along, report on your cooking experience, pipe up with your own tips on the topic or just enjoy the photos and salivate. Dig in!

Its soup season so, we're going to make a good creamy potato version part of our canon! This is my own hurried jotting down of my mom's standard potato soup. Its fairly quick to make, has no strong flavors and so suits all palates and its wonderfully thrifty to make! I hope you like it as well as I do. I have a very soft spot for it in my soul.

When I was a naughty little tyke and said I didn't like soup...I meant that I didn't like any other soups...just this one. We always ate it with a sleeve of Saltine crackers for dipping into our bowls. I still serve it that way to my own boys but for grownups a few dinner rolls, biscuits or a nice loaf of bread with butter would be a warm accompaniment.

Classic Potato Soup

5 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
1 carrot, diced
1 onion, peeled and diced
1/3 c. of heavy cream
1 T of butter or bacon fat
2 1/2 t. salt
4 c. water
1 t. dried parsley

First, melt the butter or bacon fat in a saucepan over medium heat. When it is nice and melted but not smoking or snapping yet, add the onion and the carrot, no need to peel the carrot...just chop it up and throw it in. Stir to make sure that the mixture doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan and wait to move on until the onion is translucent.

Next you add the 4 cups of water...which will cool the whole mixture down a bit so I sometimes turn up the heat to medium high...although you have to watch to make sure that it doesn't boil raucously. Once you have the water in the pot...add the diced potatoes. You can cut up your potatoes in generous, hearty hunks to fill your spoon robustly or you can cut them into dainty little cubes just because you like to see them marching in diminutive evenness down the cutting board. Whatever you like. It really is about how you like it best.

Once the potatoes are in, give it a good stir and then cover the pot and let the mixture heat up. Once you can tell its starting to simmer and steam nicely, uncover it and begin to stir occasionally and watch for the potatoes to be done. You're ready for the next stop when the potatoes are tender. You can use a fork to poke them, a knife to spear them or you can scoop a cube out of the pot and burn your tongue testing its mettle with your own teeth.

After your potatoes feel tender, take a potato masher (like you use to make mashed potatoes) and squish the soup, right in the pot. Again, there's no real rule for how much squishing would be enough, its about how smooth versus how lumpy you like potato soup. Some people like a velvet broth, and some (like me!) want a portion of chewable little bits in there for interest. Do whatever you like. Make sure to stir after mashing so that you can see how the texture of the soup is feeling as a whole, and mix the water with the potatoes and thus avoid any burning. This is a good time to make sure that the burner is back on medium...no more.

Once you have the texture you like then I often stir it over the heat and let it cook for another 2-3 minutes to be sure its nice and thick. After the consistency is where you want it, add the heavy cream, the salt and stir to mix. Taste it to be sure that the flavor is right...you may want more salt. Then add the dried parsley...mix it in and serve it up. We always have ours with a pat of butter melting on top of every bowlful.

If potato soup is old hat or you just feel like something different I sometimes add:

• grated cheese (Gruyere, sharp cheddar or smoked cheeses are lovely)
• some cooked salmon chunks and dill
• freshly chopped chives
• chicken
• sausage
• ham 
• bacon

____________________________
Just popping back on to add that I've now received a few other brilliant suggestions for additions:

• sweet corn
• fresh green beans
• crab
• lobster
• clams
• kielbasa
• and my grandmother and mama both did a budget variation with hot dog slices (which sounds totally horrible and my husband A recoils over, but it was totally deluxe to me as a kid)

One more day!

Well, today was the beginning of the end of our California trip. We made it as far south as we're going and tomorrow we backtrack up the coast from San Diego back to Los Angeles and dip our toes into Hollywood, Beverly Hills...the insanity of the glitzy world that has created American cinema and then cool off with a fabulous cousin-heavy BBQ (Latin style I hear....carne asada all round!!! Wooohoo!!!). I am really looking forward to this big reunion. The downside of living across the country is that when the family starts rapidly expanding (which seems to happen with impunity in this stage of life) there's suddenly about twice as many people and most of them are people I don't know. Blast. Am making it a goal to get rid of strangers and fit names and vague relationship titles with real individuals and personalities.

                              Ru thinks this cousin and I are unspeakably twin-like...waddya think?

Today we had what sounds like a more low-key kind of day but, honestly, it was one of our most hard core plans so far. We got up and had breakfast with our kind cousinly hosts and then the plan was:

• See Mission San Juan Capistrano
• Eat an In n' Out burger
• Go to the San Diego Zoo

That's about it. But, remember people...the San Diego Zoo...is...um....immense. We were there for about three-ish hours and we didn't even see half the exhibits. We picked what we wanted to see before we went in and just hit the star attractions on our list and breezed past the rest. Sanity requires this approach. Truly. 

The zoo was great though. We had zero meltdowns and A was very gracious and handled both boys completely on his own so that I could just walk with the camera and take my time. I stopped, a lot. I drank a lot of water. I went really, really slowly. And I made it...after we left and I got back to the car I fell asleep instantly and was comatose for about an hour but hey...that's healthy!

The animals at the zoo all seemed pretty happy, some amazingly so...which always makes me feel good. One of the things about zoos that often makes me cringe is the sight of some magnificent animal (often admittedly, endangered in their native space), pacing obsessively back and forth across the space of their, clearly too small, concrete cage floor. There wasn't a lot of that at the SD Zoo. I think it helps to have the climate to create real rainforests for the animals to live in and not lean so exclusively on concrete and plastic substitutes. The orangutan came right up the glass, palms against the window and stared each visitor down thoughtfully, cocking his head and looking in our eyes before loping off, the big male gorillas were taking lazy naps in the sunshine right up against the window and the mama and baby sat happily in full view for a good while too and the flamingos had built themselves nests and were pridefully standing up from time to time to let us all see their giant single egg on the mud mounds where they incubate (super cute). But there was the polar bear, pacing mournfully in front of the door in the back of his cage where his keeper comes and goes, bellowing over and over in wretched misery. I wished I had a big block of ice I could give him. I wonder how much the California climate causes those guys trouble and how much was some other cultural concern. Hard to know as a bystander why the animal appears unhappy. Captivity sure isn't all its cracked up to be, even if it is in some cases better than extinction. All that to say, the zoo was really a fabulous experience and the boys trekked through very energetically...like I said, we didn't have even one meltdown point which is saying a lot for a two year old who is totally off his schedule and being asked to run non-stop. They even kept going through their normal nap-time.

Mission San Juan Capistrano was good too, although I think I liked Carmel-By-The-Sea most. There was a lot of pretty sculpture in the Carmel mission and although it was smaller it seemed more intimate somehow and less production style. San Juan Capistrano had a lot more going on in their space:  a tannery, a wine press, olive pressing, herb gardens, a hospital...etc.etc. That's all once upon a time of course, today there are just a lot of docents everywhere, explaining loudly how this pit was used and what that stone area over yonder was called. It was still pretty, still had historic gravity, a beautiful chapel, lush gardens...the whole package but, somehow it was just, not quite as romantic as my first introduction to the mission idea had been.

Spring Is In Full Swing!

Well, life is as jolly as it gets around here. Dee has been given his own little dolly baby by my good friend Pintura who smuggled it out of their house and snuck it into my backpack this morning at MOPS. She has an excess of baby dolls at her house (two daughters seems to do that to you) and we needed one for a sweetly paternal little boy who has been wrapping everything and nothing in little baby washcloths and cooing them around the house in cradle hold. Just the perfect trade. Everybody wins. He's been super cute all day, carting "Baby" around with him announcing that now Baby was sleeping and now he was giving Baby milk and now Baby was "cying!" Sweet little man. He's going to make a top notch big brother.

After MOPS the boys and I cruised up to the farm for milk and eggs and a visit with the farmer's baby chicks and then we whizzed to Nutmeg's house for a little yard romp with Sprig and a cold glass of iced ginger/orange/lemon tea...MMmmmm! Hard to believe that its warm enough for ice tea already but, today was quite warm...on our way to pick up A from work the car's thermometer said 89 degrees at 5:00 in the afternoon. Awfully fun but, pretty surreal in the same breath.

And as Nutmeg quipped..."It isn't time for iced tea. This is an illusion." It will be back to spring instead of summer in a few days if the weatherman is right. True, true...and yet...who can resist the joy of flip flops and a sizzling back patio lounging session with a cold glass in their hand...seasonally appropriate or no.

We're neck deep here in magnolias, cherry blossoms, bradford pear blooms, forsythia, daffodils and flowering quince. The world has become a frothy sea of floating petals and misty  floral wonder. Every night when we're driving A home from work now I say, "Look! Look! Look at that!!" I hope it never gets old and that every spring I am stunned by the breathless beauty of it all. So far, so good.

What Do Cleopatra and Medusa Have In Common?

Snakes. That's what! Yesterday afternoon our kind neighbor Mr. Wilson, stopped by and mentioned that he'd keep a close eye on the boys when we're all out romping in the yard if he were me, someone had just run over a copperhead at the top of our drive. *shudder*

Surprise! We have copperheads here. I had no idea that we had any venomous snakes although apparently it appears that we have not one but two (the much rarer timber rattler also can be seen here one in a blue moon too) And yes, we have accidentally settled in perfectly ideal Copperhead country, right here at our condo. Wikipedia says they like moist, swampy lowlands (hello!), mixed decidious forests and rocky ledges for sun bathing (about those stone-walls).

The pictures are not a live snake of course, but just some shots of our snakeskin we found last year as you may remember from this post. I dug it out of the back of the nature shelf after Mr. Wilson left though and had a good hard look at it to see if had any copperheady signs about it...its a bit unnerving to know that we found it on the edge of the driveway, strangely near where this latest sighting was.

I actually feel just a little jello-legged about this new discovery and although I had kind of thought of gardening that afternoon and this morning, I still haven't been out. Handily, it turns out that copperheads are one of the least venomous pit vipers (a family of snakes with heat pits on their heads for sensing prey) so you're quite likely to live. Or at least I would be. Not so sure what Dee's chances would be.

I have a feeling some serious lessons about reptilian manners are in order and some careful coaching about not playing on the stone walls on those balmy sunny days. Good thing the walls belong to the neighbor anyhow...I have a reason to try to keep them off now.

The reverse of the old saying goes, "There are not gains without some small losses." This is the price one pays I suppose for racking up higher growing zone numbers. Shoulda known there'd be some little hitch. Lets hope we can just learn to live with the snakes and stay out of their way. Its good to note that there has not been a death from copperhead bites in the last 100 years in our area, that the snakes are actually rare enough that they are a protected species and that they are intensely afraid of humans and will generally avoid us at all costs. Now if only they didn't have that habit of freezing when danger is very near. The easiest way to get bitten by a copperhead is to accidentally step on it. They're stinking well camouflaged.