Draft 2021

We found Pinocchio at the Des Moines Art Fair Saturday evening! Seriously, this sculpture (?) reminds of a limbless Pinocchio puppet. We've never gone to the Art Fair before, mostly because it's always been beastly hot and I didn't want to be tempted to spend money. Well, this weekend cooled off beautifully, and I've been trying to get out and do more locally, so we piled in the car and headed off. This man "arted right in front of us. There was some beautiful artwork, but I'm not what you'd call a connoisseur. So while it was fun to look, temptations were truly minimal. We tended to gravitate toward the photography, and I was sorely tempted by a wrap-around print on canvas of this photo Melissa's holding. You can't really see it in all its glory... dusty old pop bottles, beautiful yellows and greens, I knew just where I'd hang it... but the $275 price tag was too steep for me. Michael was having fun taking pictures, until he was informed that

This may well have been the best rhubarb pie I have ever made. Not too tart, not too sweet, and drizzled with local cream. I think I could eat this every day... I found 2 lbs. of asparagus hiding in the fridge. Oops. It was a couple weeks old already, but other than needing to trim off a little extra from the ends, it was in good-enough shape to eat. I was not going to feed 2 lbs. of local asparagus to the chickens! I was worried that age might have toughened it up too much for my regular recipe, so instead I marinated it in a homemade balsamic vinegar dressing for several hours before grilling. I'll definitely be making it this way again next year. I needed to use up my homemade barbecue sauce, so we thawed one of our local chickens and slow-baked it, using the broiler to finish. The slow-cooking and the sauce kept the meat from drying out, yielding delectably tender and juicy chicken. I missed all the farmer's markets last week, so decided to check Craigslist to

Look who Sarah found in the brush pile on the other side of the driveway. According to her observations, this is Mama snake. We've found lots of shed snake skins and spotted at least two baby snakes. I'm totally creeped-out by snakes, even though I value their importance to the ecosystem. I'm glad they're living in my yard, I just don't want to see one slither past me. Thankfully, though they are " gregarious ," they mostly just want to hang out with others of their own kind. It's nice to know this garter snake family is protecting my yard from rodents, leeches, insects, and other undesirables. I'm also glad Sarah found them and took these close-ups. I never would have been able to get this close...

Shortly after we moved into our home almost three years ago, I got word that the local family from whom we'd bought pork was getting out of the hog-raising business. This would be my last chance to order pork from them, so I promptly dashed off an email asking for my usual 1/2 hog. There was only one small problem; I'd actually ordered twice the amount of pork we could eat in a year! Despite being a family of 6, we've never been big meat-eaters. Recently I heard the term "flexitarian" to describe this kind of eating, and I think we totally fit the bill. We primarily eat vegetarian, only occasionally choosing to eat meat. I try only to buy locally, humanely, and antibiotic-free raised meats. The exceptions are the once-in-a-while McDonald's hamburger for my daughter, a Subway tuna sandwich for me, and eating out, which hardly if ever happens here. Anyway, I'd already placed the order and was too embarrassed to cancel half of it. No one I knew wanted a

I had to kill my chicken yesterday. It wasn't easy, and I had help, but it had to be done. The girls had noticed for a couple of months now that Dottie, one of our Australorps, wasn't doing well. She always had poop on her hind end, her comb was small and pale, and she weighed significantly less than her two sisters. A couple of weeks ago, I spoke with our veterinarian who raises chickens of her own. She doesn't treat chickens as part of her practice, and told me she pretty much lets nature take its course with her own flock. "If one of them dies, I figure, 'Oh, you must have been sick.' " Now that's a practical outlook on chicken management if I've ever heard one. Apparently, Dottie was, to put it simply, "not a thrifty chicken." Basically, this means she consumed our resources (food, etc.), but didn't produce anything for us (no eggs). I was willing to allow her to continue her spendthrift ways, but yesterday she took a turn for the

As in, "hotter than." We're dripping here in Iowa, with temperatures hitting 90 or so and humidity so high you can shower without water. Eww. Sorry about that. We have our ceiling fans running, put fans in the windows last night, and are drinking buckets of water. What we aren't doing is turning on the air conditioner. Don't get me wrong, I'm not suffering for the ideals of environmental martyrdom. No, we're suffering because the air conditioners aren't yet in the windows to turn on. You see, our 1904 house doesn't have central air and it would cost upwards of $15,000 to have it installed. We have a boiler heating system so all ductwork would need to be added, the basement ceiling would likely need to be replaced in the process, and... well, we don't plan to make that kind of investment in this house. Especially since we need a new roof, the garage door opener doesn't work, the basement's a little leaky, we need to repair the window s

I've never been accused of having a rosy outlook on life. I have a hefty helping of the curmudgeon gene, a trait that runs strongly throughout my family. Through the years, I've learned to harness this natural cynicism somewhat, using my force for good more often than evil. It wasn't always so. I wonder if a cynical outlook is a linked trait with depression, or if one naturally leads to the other. Perhaps they coexist only in correlational relationship. I pondered this a bit yesterday while home alone. The girls were at an art class, the dog in her kennel, and I was wasting time working hard on the computer. I had already eaten lunch, but the knowledge that the candy bars I bought on sale a couple of weeks ago were sitting all alone in the kitchen cupboard began to haunt me. I don't usually deny myself a candy bar when I want one, but I'm sort of in recovery mode right now. You see, a little more than a year ago I found out I have hypothyroidism. Over the previous

Just call me "Ringo," circa 1963 We went to the Iowa Sheep and Wool Festival last weekend and had a great time, but dang it was cold! It's hard to get good pictures of happy people when some of the people aren't especially happy because they're freezing ... There, that's better. I love this guy. He's so confident. He wears his naturally curly hair... and horns... with a certain dignity and panache. Not everyone can do that. My hair used to be as straight as that of my two lovely daughters. No longer. Simply mention the word "humidity" and my hair twists and curls every-which-way. There's no cure, either. It's not curly enough for the "curl enhancers" to work, the curling iron makes nary a dent and - oh, my god! - that's not a thinning patch up there on top, is it? This little lady - the one on the right - was the sweetest sheep at the fair. All she wanted was attention - petting, nuzzling, stroking - she never tired of it. I

That's how we're feeling here today. Michael's travel season has started and he's off to corn fields near and far for the week. He hasn't been gone since that fateful trip in February - a time we on the home front would all like to forget. This time will be different; we have greater numbers here to man the fort since Zach is home for the summer, Ivy is older (a little), my foot is much better, and it's been so long since we've had take out food it will be a real treat for a day or two. But we all will miss him. It just isn't the same at home when he's gone. Life in general is so much easier now than say, 10 or 15 years ago. I look back and marvel that I had the energy for three children under 5, or 4 children under 9. Those days were long and hard, but I look back on them fondly now. Sort of. I was so busy I didn't really have a chance to miss Michael for Michael; it was more the absence of a second pair of hands that I missed. So, it's alw

I can't wait...

I'm not much for couponing. Most coupons are for prepackaged, processed foods, which I typically don't buy. When I read of a family "cutting their grocery bill in half" using coupons, it's usually, if not always, because that family buys pre-made foods, grocery store meat and eggs, disposable paper products, etc. For me, the issue is the quality of my food dollar, not simply the dollar itself. Every now and then, however, a good coupon comes along that I decide to take advantage of. I don't often buy breakfast cereal as we usually have homemade breads, muffins, pancakes, oatmeal, etc., available in the morning. When I do buy cereal, it's usually Raisin Bran, Grape Nuts or Cheerios. Last week, however, there was a great deal at Hy Vee on General Mills Cereals for $2 a small box. I decided we deserved a treat, so I gathered as many additional coupons for GM cereals online, and headed to the store to stock up. I bought 9 boxes of GM cereal for $18, but when y

Oh, how I love spring! This salad was entirely composed of locally grown veggies, some from our garden (broccoli, lettuce, radish, strawberries and onion), and some from the farmer's market (greenhouse-grown tomatoes, pea pods). But the real star of the meal was the pizza my dh made. We always make our own whole grain crusts and this week's the topping was mostly local as well. Michael sauteed mustard greens with a little garlic, salt and pepper, spread them on the sauce, then topped the pizza with local goat cheese. It really was fabulous, and I still feel healthy just thinking about it! Dessert featured more of these beauties from our own patch: This time I made a strawberry-rhubarb pie. Unfortunately, I neglected to take a photo!

On Sunday Michael and I went looking for hanging baskets for the front porch. We have one of those old-fashioned from porches that just cries out for hanging baskets. Last year I skipped the hanging baskets, in fact, I skipped annuals all-together. It made me sad. So, we checked at one of those big garden centers, but their least expensive basket was $19.99, and while it looked nice, it just wasn't worth it. I suggested checking out a Hy-Vee garden center, figuring they might have discounted some of their flowers by now. They had a row of raggedy-looking, somewhat beleaguered, hanging baskets marked down to $9.99. Now, it was good they were marked down, but they were definitely not worth $10 a piece. I urged Michael to go ahead and ask the manager if he would take any more off the price, afterall, they were pretty ratty. Without hesitation, he offered to sell them to us for $5 a piece. Yippee! I chose the best looking of the bunch and left with 4 hanging baskets for $20. Hopeful