Rambling Holiday Thoughts

An update of goings on around here will follow at the bottom of this post. Suffice it to say that daily routines have been extremely busy!

Fall is my favorite time of year. I do have some peeves about the season however. I'm all for capitalism, but our world today is so overwhelmed with advertisements that the merchants seem to be bent on sapping the joy out of everything.

We can't get through July 4th before the back-to-school ads begin, harping at us that our children should not be deprived of the latest and best in any and everything from their clothing, backpacks, electronic gadgetry and of course, heat and eat food from the freezer section. All of these things are bent on driving parents to equip their child with nothing but the best - yet published charts explain that despite our personal spending and massive increases in local, state and federal government funding, the children have not significantly altered their academic performance in the last 30 years! (Why More Money Will Not Solve America's Education Crisis: Heritage.org provides examples of such charts, along with their views regarding funding.) Before I digress too far down that bunny trail, suffice it to say that I think too much money is being thrown at anything labeled 'for the children', yet somehow, the children do not benefit.

Then, we can't get the kids on the bus to school before the Halloween ads crank up. Michael Jackson's Thriller is thrown at us in all kinds of versions no matter where you go, accompanied by skeletons, ghosts, witches and a few scarecrows.

Abruptly after October 31, however, an oddity has arisen in our seasonal deluge of media blitzing. Merchants skip right past Thanksgiving to Black Friday. Thanksgiving hardly is mentioned at all, except with the context of PRE-Thanksgiving specials - and we're not talking turkey dinners here. Now I'm all for early shopping to save money and to be prepared to bless family and friends with carefully chosen gifts. I honestly believe that the current generation of children and teens have likely heard much more about Black Friday than the traditional Thanksgiving account of the English settlers' feast.

So, Thanksgiving is basically being erased in favor of the competition for the Christmas shopping dollars. Aisles in the stores are filled to overflowing with every type of merchandise intended to help you create the ideal holiday, complete with indoor/outdoor decor, apparel, and of course gifts in the ideal wrap with the perfectly matched ribbons and bows.

I went out last night in search of candles for our advent wreath and was dismayed to find the carnage in the aisles of the local stores after the ravaging of the fervent shoppers. I also did not find the candles I wanted, but easily settled for an alternate in the desire to escape the chaotic panorama of both the recently plundered and depleted shelves of Black Friday specials and the overflowing bins of cheaply made toys spilling on to the pathways to the checkout counters.

So, in a nutshell, commercialism of holidays seems to effectively drive folks out to mix it up in somewhat of a frenzy to spend money. I think there must be a huge segment of the population that continues to feel deprived and unfulfilled...and in debt!

Time to put the blinders on! Focus on what's most important with each holiday celebration and life in general! We've been working for years to establish traditions for the holidays that have some meaningful purpose for our family. Time will tell whether these things take root within our kids, but I know that for my husband and me, these things help to prevent the distractions from stealing our time, attention and money away.

Enough ranting, the promised update follows:

Chickens: As of yesterday, we put our 23 pullets (or possibly 22 pullets and 1 cockerel) into the coop and run with our 26 laying hens. We were somewhat anxious about this blending, as warnings abound in online resources that advise that re-establishing the pecking order can be brutal and possibly fatal for the younger chickens. We can report that all 49 chickens are alive and well. We will be rehoming a number of the birds so that our remaining flock will not be overcrowded! The laying hens are doing very well and continue to produce an average quantity of 24 eggs per day. We have some loyal customers that purchase our excess, so the hens are paying their way on feed and continue to pay down the mortgage on the coop ;).

Garden: The garden has been reworked to remove as many weeds as possible and lies dormant for winter with nothing but a row of strawberry plants and a few straggling asparagus plants. We're trying a new approach that involves mounds, irrigation, plastic protection and mulch.

Herb Garden: Absolutely nothing happening in this area. Thanksgiving meal preparations stirred my desire to have my own herbs for next year's dinner - planted, harvested and dried. We'll see....I've got a whole year to work on making that happen!

Life in general: School for the kids, meal prep and clean-up, house maintenance (cleaning and repairs), garden tool maintenance, inside/outside chores, church participation and activities, extracurricular kid activities all seem to keep us quite busy!

Thanks for stopping by the blog! Perhaps the coming winter months will afford more opportunity for posting articles of merit!

Mews on the Homestead

I'd like to introduce the newest critters on the homestead - Hansel and Gretel (or Eowyn and Eomer). The names are a work in progress.

cute!

The kids have wanted a cat for some time and we've been deliberating about caring for an outdoor kitty. We could definitely see benefits in combating mice and voles. We see evidence of the voles all over the property.

Looks pretty cute in the photo, doesn't it? Thriving on mostly plant life, they will certainly wreak havoc on the vegetable garden, bulbs and the herb garden.

I could also see the beautiful song birds that frequent our feeder becoming prey for the cat. However, as cute goes - the cat is much cuter than the vole and we can do our best to relocate the feeder to help the songbirds survive. I wish I knew how to train the cat to be selective in the hunt!

So the search for the cats was on and we first stopped at the local animal shelter. The local government operated facility is most definitely not a 'no-kill' shelter and they are not set up to quarantine sick animals from the healthy ones. We spied a couple of very spunky young kitties, but were worried about diseases, so we left without selections.

We then stopped at a privately operated non-profit shelter. A Time 4 Paws houses as many adoptable cats and dogs as possible, with a long waiting list of critters in foster care waiting for space in the central facility. We found Hansel and Gretel there, 6-8 mos old siblings, recently spayed and neutered, vaccinated and with a clean bill of health from a local vet. They will live solely in the garage until acclimated to us and their home, then we hope that they will have a blast roaming the property daily and hopefully return to the garage for the night. Our Lord of the Rings fans are considering names of the Rohan kingdom siblings, Eowyn and Eomer. We'll let you know!

Spring show of flowers

The first spring in this new home for us has been especially delightful. Besides the normal lift of spirit from seeing green grass and flowers, we have a number of new things in our surroundings.
Dogwoods showed the first blooms early on, along with several forsythia bushes.

Then, a few weeks later, the rhododendron beside the house and an azalea came out with the irises.
Next, the peony bush showed off these large white blooms.
Here's a closeup view of some of the brightest blooms!

I found myself trotting around the house early each morning to see what new blooms were greeting me! Now, reflecting back, the dogwoods, forsythias and most of the irises are spent. What a reminder to enjoy thoroughly what each day brings!

I have a long range dream of spring and summer long blooms blended with an herb garden. I'll have to stay focused as fall approaches to see if I can plant wisely! I want to supplement these blooms that have already shown themselves and add some things that will bloom throughout the summer.

Tornado Alley moved?

I grew up in Texas and remember frequent alerts for tornadoes. I've never seen one, but have seen the aftermath within a few miles of my childhood home on many occasions. Among many other events, I remember the story of a high rise building in Lubbock (yes, they have at least one) being twisted on its foundation by an F-5 tornado (250 mph winds!). From my own personal observations and reports over the years, I believed that the image below defined Tornado Alley:

Now that we're in Tennessee, a good 1000 miles to the east of this highlighted area, we are now seeing this diagram in the spring forecasts:

Odd, isn't it?

The good thing about those huge thunderstorms is the rain. Another relatively good thing is that tornadoes damage such a limited area - if you are a few blocks away, your home and you will survive. There are other types of disasters such as hurricanes or tsunamis that take out entire regions! Of course, the bad thing is the damage that can result from high winds, hail and of course, the limited protections you can use for a direct impact of the deadly tornadoes. I'm thankful for the warning systems and broadcasting tools that can help us prepare as best we can. I'm also thankful for God's graciousness in protecting us, not only on tornado alert days - but every moment!

When convenient isn't so convenient anymore

Thinking more about my small goals of a really terrific buttermilk biscuit and pie dough from scratch, my mind is going down another bunny trail. First of all, I want to make sure that I go on record with a declaration that my mother is an excellent cook. My grandmother was an excellent cook and my mother told me not too long ago that my great-grandmother baked homemade pies for sale when she was a kid. So, with that kind of cooking heritage, how is it that I don't know how to create these things?

I think that food production took a drastically different direction when processes were discovered that allowed for freezing fully-cooked dinners like that TV dinner above. In the day when we were amazed to think that Jane Jetson could prepare dinner with the push of a button, we didn't actually have microwaves!

But we did have an image that the modern woman didn't slave in the kitchen for her family's meals. We also bought into the idea that this new frozen food was more convenient than preparing meals the traditional way. I'm not sure if we really sold ourselves on the idea that it tasted the same? Just look at this plate and tell me that the TV dinner at the top of the page looks the same (or tastes the same) as the one below!

Then, we took this giant leap of 'fast food' at drive in and drive through 'restaurants'. Now, when I stop and think about time management, going into the kitchen and cooking a Rachel Ray 30 minute meal is probably a quicker, cheaper and better tasting alternative than the local Sonic, Taco Bell, etc. options that would require the drive to and from, time ordering and waiting for delivery, etc.

I think the message that 'I don't have time to cook' infiltrated my mind long ago and I've been gaining more on the truth of the matter for awhile now. But, like everything else, doing things well takes practice and so here I go. I think the message may be changing with the popularity of Rachel Ray, the Food channel, HGTV, etc. I heard a professional chef advising a failing restaurant owner to prepare and cook the food rather than heating up frozen options. He told the restaurant owner that the 'real' food would cost pennies on the dollar and would taste better. So, if that's true in the restaurant business, why not in our homes? Now, the times are getting a little tougher economically and we all may need to pinch our pennies more than we used to. Food prices are also going up, but preparing your own food will taste better and be less expensive that frozen options or eating out. Since my family doesn't mind left-overs, I usually prepare a double recipe so that we can enjoy two meals for the mess I create with my efforts.

And just because I can't help myself, let me share one other thing. A new item I saw advertised in the last month was a product called 'Recipe Inspirations'. It's a packet with 1/2 dozen different spices and/or dried herbs and a recipe card. The entire contents are less than 1/2 oz of spices and I bet the product costs more than a single container of an individual spice. Between the internet, cookbooks, magazine articles and TV shows, there's a multitude of 'inspirations' out there! Please do not spend your hard earned dollars on a frivolous item like this! Print out the recipe, make a grocery list, get the stuff and cook it! You CAN do it!

In search of the best buttermilk biscuit recipe

As a girl raised in the south, you'd think I would have already conquered this one. But, alas, I cannot bake homemade buttermilk biscuits that line up with my ideal biscuit. It's fluffy, a little tangy, soft, but lightly brown on top. Here's a picture:

I keep working on one from my favorite cookbook published by Southern Living, but without the results that I want. Now, I'm on to that queen of southern comfort food, Paula Deen. Here's a link to hers:

Old Fashioned Buttermilk Biscuits

If we pair it with the sausage gravy, I know that we will have to spend more time with Jillian. If I can sort out how to make home made biscuits however, I'll be on to my next cooking goal - homemade pie crusts!

I'll let you know how this works out. Better yet, I should let my kids and husband report on this - they will have to eat the results!

Ugh...out-of-shape body, meet JILLIAN

After hearing two friends speak positively of this dvd workout, I picked up a copy at Walmart over the weekend. Promptly, on Monday morning - I plugged in the dvd and my dh even joined me for the first 20 minute workout. I'm proud of myself for not doing my usual thing of watching the workout first from the couch before getting started. We just plugged it in and got going. The workout was very challenging for us and today, we're very sore - but it feels good to get moving! I like that the workout is short - there are NO breaks, so it's a solid 20 minutes of strength, cardio and abdominal exercises. Today, we stuck with it even though some of our body parts ache. We'll see how our resolve lasts. I'm not aspiring to show off my mid-section like Jillian does, but having a bit less of that mid-section would feel great!