Goofy Dog

Look at Bo!  He thinks he is human.  He thinks I bought this rocker on the porch just for him.  He naps there every day.  Here he is waking up with a big yawn.

His new habit is jumping in the neighbor's car when she goes to get her mail.  Luckily, it makes her laugh.  He couldn't be much goofier! 

We Got Our Hair Done

I don't get my hair cut very often.  Like twice a year, tops.  It hadn't been cut since last May.  I was feeling really shaggy.  I started trying to get an appointment but every time the appointment rolled around something happened.  My kids got sick.  My stylist's kid got sick.  My stylist got sick.  You get the idea.  It took two months to finally get an appointment that worked.  I decided to go all out and get color done too.  I get so tired of dyeing out the gray myself.

 When Cort got of the bus, he gave me a really strange look.  I thought something was terribly wrong.  He said, "Mom?  Why is your hair black?".  It wasn't really black, but it was much darker than usual.  I said, "Well, I dyed it."  He looked at me curiously.  "Mom?  Can I dye my hair?"  I said, "Well, what color did you want to dye it?".  He surprised me by promptly saying, "Blue!"

Now it just so happened that a few years ago I found a bunch of spray in, wash out hair color on Halloween clearance for 10 cents a can.  I knew it would come in handy one day.  Cort sure was pleased to sport blue hair for an evening.

Readers, have you ever dyed your hair in crazy colors?

The Pressure Cooker

I've been water bath canning for many years, but it has a lot of limitations.  For at least a decade, I've wanted a pressure cooker.  More than anything else, I'd love to be able to pressure can green beans.

This year for Christmas, Paul and the boys gave me an All American pressure cooker.  It was my only present from them, and way over our usual budget, but I do think it will pay for itself over time. 

I confess the thing is a little intimidating, even with all the safety features.  But I was eager to try it.  I watched the intro video twice.  Then Paul butchered a couple of roosters for me. 

It seems some folks pack chicken raw, but after consulting a couple of friends and websites, I decided to cook mine first.  The added bonus to this is getting broth as well.  I packed the meat in pint jars with just a little broth. 

It was super cold outside, but Paul was nice enough to oversee the pressure canner for me while I kept an eye on the bone broth process indoors. 

We haven't tried them yet, but I'm hoping the meat will be flavorful and tender.  Roosters can be kind of tough and stringy, but pressure canning is supposed to help with that. 

Readers, have you ever used a pressure canner?

Cast Iron Cooking

Our power went out twice last week.  Once was from a wind storm.  I'm not sure what caused the second outage. 

I decided it was time to get some cast iron for cooking on the wood stove.  With temps below 20*, I haven't been too excited about the option of grilling or using the sun oven.  I had some cast iron, but it was too large to fit in our little wood stove space. 

Nice and seasoned.  Sure makes my wood stove look dusty and faded!  I also got an enamel kettle that fits in the space too.  My first thing to cook was cornbread.  I am, through and through, a little bit Southern.

Readers, do you cook anything with cast iron?

Beware of Glasses

The last day of school before the Christmas break, something terrible happened.  Poor, innocent Pierce was eating his lunch at school when his glasses just up and jumped right off his face!  They commenced the fall of death and crumbled to pieces.  Can you believe it?  Glasses are real trouble makers.  Always out to get you.  And just when you least expect it, too.  Pierce had these glasses for over a year and they'd never done anything like this before.

After much complaining over his backup glasses (which are red), a new pair finally arrived.  The inexpensive company we order from in Canada no longer carried a Harry Potter style for kids, so I had to pick something different.  Somehow I think these suit him.

Hopefully these glasses will be better behaved than the last pair.

Cooking with the Sun

Ever since the derecho storm in 2012 which caused us to lose power for 8 days, I've been a little obsessed with clever off grid living ideas.  One of those clever things I wanted was a sun oven.  They are pricy, though, so I've been biding my time.  You can bake anything in them that you would bake in a regular oven: stews, breads, cookies.  You can even dehydrate in them. 

This year I got enough Christmas money to make the purchase (thanks, family!).  It folds up for easy transportation, but you can see it here all opened up.  First I had to preheat it.  You can see the little white boxes at the bottom - these allow you to align it with the sun.  I didn't take into account the windy day (and it was only 18* that morning) so when I came out the sun oven had blown over.  After that, I stabilized it with the tent stakes it came with (duh!).  Then I put in a pot of vinegar to steam for a couple of hours, after which I cleaned it (this is a one time, initial procedure).  Then it was ready to use.

By this time it was noon.  I put in a pot of lentil soup to start.  The pots are stackable, so after an hour I added a pot of cabbage with seasoning.  Each time you open the oven, it lets out heat like a crockpot, so you have to be careful about that.  I checked it about every 40 minutes to realign with the sun.

What I didn't take into account was that this time of year, the sun sets behind our mountain at around 2:30 in the afternoon.  Yes, that's right.  2:30.

Fortunately, the sun oven did hit 300* even in that short amount of time, and everything was cooked. While it probably could have used another hour of cooking, we did enjoy the meal. It performed well considering all my first timer mistakes!  And next time will be even better I'm sure.

Readers, do you do much cooking in the yard?

Catacombs and Basement Ghosts

Over the winter break we made a couple of trips to the library.  The boys enjoy it and I can always use another stack of books to read.  I was in the children's section on the computer when Reid came up with these two books.  I don't know where he found them, but they did look rather interesting.

In fact, I wanted to read them myself.  Reid said that I could, after he read them first.  Afterwards, he started talking about ghosts all the time, and he talked his twin brother Cort into reading these.  Next thing I knew, the boys spent a whole day in the basement hunting for ghosts.

But at 4 am the next morning, Paul and I were awakened by some yelling.  Upon investigation, it was Cort.  Screaming over the ghost in his room.  The face, trying to get him.  He said it wasn't a dream, that it was real, and he was terrified. 

I told him that newer houses don't have ghosts.  Only very old houses.  That worked for a night.  Then again, two nights later, more crying at 4 am. 

Meanwhile, Reid has ordered the entire 'Scariest Places on Earth' series from the library system.  There are about eight other books.

I'm thinking Cort doesn't need to read these books when they come in.  Reid will just have to keep them to himself!

Readers, what scared you as a child?