New Life

I have a part-time job working for a woman Dr. that lives up the road from me.  I do a variety of tasks and one of them is to keep her animals fed and watered.  

About 6 months ago she got some goats to help with her ag exemption with the hope that they would eventually have babies. If the baby turned out to be a doe then she would either keep or sell to someone.  If the baby turned out to be a buck then she would have several decisions to make.  One would be that she would have to castrate it to be sold for Bar-B-Que or not castrate and sold to someone looking to expand their herd. 

 That may sound harsh for some of you out there but that's what life is like in the country.  You need to pull your own weight in some form or fashion or you are bound for greener pastures...and sometimes not on this earthly plain. 

These two adorable little guys were born not last night but the night before.  They are both little bucks so their fate will be decided in just a few short weeks.  But at this age they are almost too precious for words.  

We have two more momma's that are pregnant.  One will probably give birth within the next two weeks and the other momma will be a little later than that. 

With any luck the other does will give birth to girls.  At any rate we're looking forward to more babies in the near future.  

Poppies

Poppies, poppies...everywhere. 
Last fall my husband received a packet of Poppy seeds from a friend in Northern California and told me that if I wanted I could sprinkle them around the front yard.  So I did. 

For those of you that don't know about Poppy seeds...they are tiny...about the size of a pin head and I'm not talking about those glass heads...no way....about the size of a stainless steel pin head. 

So sprinkling them is a little difficult and hard to figure out just how many of those will take and how many will get eaten by various bugs and how many will just wash away in the rains. 

Well.......I guess that I did too good of a job cause we got a LOT of Poppies.  This particular variety is pink and the petals are kinda ruffley...is that a word????   

My husband was less than pleased...especially when you consider that each one of these blooms becomes a seed pod after the flower is spent and that seed pod contains hundreds of seeds.   He wasn't upset that we had the success of the blooms but he was upset because he felt like it might shade out other plants that were getting started at about the same time.  

So I have been very busy lately as the blooms have faded and produced the seed pods of gathering the seeds.  I know that I won't get every one but hopefully I'll gather enough to share and enough to sprinkle along the long drive to the house so that we have color next spring.  

Springtime Chores

Springtime has really sprung in Central Texas and Bob and I are taking advantage of the great weather to get some chores done. 

We are lucky enough to be the proud owners of a Bobcat that helps with some of the heavier chores and saves our bodies now that we are getting older. 

Unfortunately due to the drought of last summer we lost a lot of our fruit trees...3 peach trees, 1 pear and 2 plums.  It's heartbreaking because many of those trees we planted long before we moved and built the house over here.  And the peach trees always seemed to produce peaches one after the other so we never had too many peaches all at the same time.  

The Bobcat makes quick work of having to pull them out of the ground. 

So one after another Bob pulled them out of the ground and then on to the next chore.  

In the fall of 2010 we bought a bunch of native wildflower seeds to spread all over our flower beds and along the drive.  This year we were rewarded with this nice show of poppies.  There are lots of other flowers popping up along the drive...many of which we cannot identify.  So I'm thinking that if the rains continue we will have color everywhere hopefully long into the summer.

And of course I couldn't forget the bluebonnets.  They are spectacular this year.  This is just right outside the backyard fence.  And the perfume from this batch is so heavy on some days it will give you a headache.                                                                                                                                  

Happy Anniversary

Fifty nine years ago today, my parents were married in an Air Force Base Chapel in Big Spring, Texas.  Both from New England they didn't have any family present to witness their union.  Not that the families were adverse to the union, it was just that it was such a long way for the family to travel.  They had a couple of witnesses and a small reception and then my father had to go to work. 

They have endured a lot during their union.  Long separations, dangerous duty, foreign assignments and lately health issues.  But through it all they have remained together and they have that deep abiding love that only comes with years of experience.

When my mother was in ICU this past Christmas and we thought that we were going to lose her, I saw my father shed a few tears.  In my 57 years on this earth I have never seen him do that. 

My mother is the strongest woman I know and she had endured a lot in being married to my father.  The best way that I can illustrate this is to tell you this story. 

In 1962 we were stationed at James Conelly A.F. Base in Waco, TX.  My father got orders for Okinawa, now known as Okinawa, Japan.  The fly in the oinment was that he would travel there first and we would follow a few months later.
There were 4 of us kids.  My older brother was 8, I was 7, Chris was 6 and Chickie was just 2 years old.
My father left sometime that summer and we were to follow during the Christmas Break.  This was the first and only time that we were to travel in the middle of the school year.  All the years following we moved during the summer. 
So here was my mother, all alone with 4 small children, traveling to an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and right before Christmas. 
We left Waco, headed for Dallas to catch our plane that would take us to San Francisco and then to Okinawa, but with 4 small children and suitcases etc....we ended up late and missed our plane.  According to my mother, we spent the next 2 days in the Dallas Airport waiting for our plane to take us to San Francisco.  We slept in chairs and ate what was available in the terminal.  And there wasn't much because this was 1962 and flying was still kind of a novelty.  
Finally we boarded our plane that was to take us to San Francisco and off we went.
When we landed in San Francisco we had a couple of hours until our next plane took us to Hawaii for refueling, Wake Island for another refueling and then to Okinawa.  But during those couple of hours fog rolled in and we weren't able to fly out of San Francisco.  So the powers that be boarded us all on a bus and we went to Oakland where we were finally able to board the plane that took us to Okinawa and our new home. 
I hear women these days complain all the time about having 2 children and how complicated it can be.  My mother took 4 small children by herself half way round the world and never missed a beat.  That is one tough lady. 

So Happy 59th Anniversary to my parents whom I love madly and may others be inspired by your commitment to one another. 

Hope Springs Eternal

See that plant there?  That plant in the middle of the picture..the one with 5 leaflets.  That my dear friends is the Texas Bluebonnet "Lupins Texensis".  Doesn't look like much now, but come spring it will be beautiful with blue and white flowers.  It is also for those that do not know...the state flower of Texas.

But what I wanted to point out in these next pictures is for you to look closely at the ground from which it springs.  Notice anything???  Maybe a lack of soil for one.  This wonderful little flower springs from some really rough terraine and the worse looking the better for this beauty.  It also takes water, but not just water any time...no, water in the fall and winter around here will make for a beautiful show of flowers in the spring. 

So after a spring and summer last year literally from hell with 90+ days of 100+ temps and no rain to speak of...we've had some rain, not a lot mind you, but enough to make the bluebonnets appear.  So it gives me hope that we will have a wonderful spring with lots of wildflowers.

This is one hardy wildflower.  It doesn't transplant well, many have tired and few have succeeded.  It has a really tough seed coat that needs to scarafied with heat or water in order to make it germinate. 

This small hill on our property doesn't look like much, but come spring it will be covered with Bluebonnets.  You can't see them now but if you walked this hill you'd see that it was covered with Bluebonnet plants.

So with that in mind, I think about my mom.  She takes a licken but keeps on ticken.  She got some good news from her Dr. this past week.  The new meds that she is taking are working.  We know that we will lose her at some point but for right now...with the right meds, at the right time, she will continue to bloom. And that's enough for me to hope for. 

Happy Birthday Chickie!!!

Fifty two years ago, on my 5th birthday, my sister was born.  At first it was a novelty and I was pretty excited.  But when she came home from the hospital it wore off pretty quickly.  She cried and wanted attention all the time...or so it seemed to my 5 year old brain.

As the years went by it seemed like we were always at odds with one another.  She was still a baby at 5 and I was a pre-teen at 10.  She was a pre-teen at 10 and I was practically a High Schooler at 15.  It probably didn't help that we always had to share a room, so tastes and need for privacy tended to keep us at odds with one another. 

My mother would say to me at times, "you should be nicer to her, you're going to miss her someday".  I'd look at my mother like she was out of her mind.  But you know...she was right.  My first year in college was in Virginia and my family was in England.  And for some reason I began to miss hearing her voice and listening to her talk about her friends and her day.  I was surprized as anyone to realize that she was such a big part of my life and I couldn't just pick up the phone and call her like you can today.  At that time there were no cell phones and if you wanted to make an overseas call you had to wait for an overseas operator.  This was not easily done on a phone in the hallway of a dorm and that doesn't even include how much money it cost...and you'd have to have it in change.  Yes, I missed her big time. 

I think that we started to begin to see each other as equals when I began to talk of getting married.  She'd had a steady boyfriend for a while and although they were both finishing up college, they knew that they would be getting married as well.  We both had very strong ideas about our weddings.  I wanted something simple and no fuss and she wanted the church and the dress.  Both of us got exactly what we wanted and it was perfect. 

She and her husband have been married now for almost 30 years.  They have 2 wonderful daughters, one who is a second year Vet student studying at Texas A&M and the other who is finishing up her senior year at Sam Houston State majoring in communications.  Both wonderful women in their own right. 

But my sister is the rock that I lean on.  There is no one like her.  I love her so fiercely.  She's a great mother, wonderful friend and someone that I know will be there for me anytime or anywhere. 
We share a birthday now for many years gladly and  one of us will call the other sometime today and sing the Happy Birthday song.  It has been our habit for decades now. 

So Happy 52nd Birthday, my sister, my friend.   I love you truly. 

The Staff of Life

Bread.....homemade bread...the very staff of life.  I've been making bread once or twice or even 3 or 4 times a week for almost as long as I can remember. 

My love for cooking and baking goes way back to my Junior High School days.  I can remember when I had my first Home Economics class and I was so excited that you could take raw ingredients and mix them together in certain ways and make something of them.  It was miraculous to me.  And when I got home that afternoon I was beside myself with joy as I recounted what we had done in class to my mother.  She smiled to herself and told me that if I wanted...I could pour through her cookbooks for desserts and I could begin to make desserts for our school lunches.  I would need to make out a list of ingredients for what we needed and I could use the kitchen on Sunday afternoons.  She would be close by if I needed help but that it was really all up to me.  Well, let me tell you what a joy it was.  We had some pretty interesting desserts.  I made the usual cakes, pies and brownies but I also made cream puffs, and Boston Cream Pie and doughnuts!  I'm sure there were some flops although I don't remember any but what I do remember is that this is where I wanted to be for the rest of my life. 

Of course a move (my father was in the Air Force) took us to England where the kitchen was small and I had discovered boys.  Occasionally I would wind up in the kitchen making a dessert for dinner or maybe for some lucky guy that I was dating but it didn't happen that much. 
College brought me back to the states but a dining hall took the place of meals and until I met some people who lived in homes I didn't get back into the kitchen until my Senior year of college and apartment living. 

My favorite roommate of all time was a girl who came from a small Texas town and had a love for cooking just like me.  We were happier than pigs in slop.  A kitchen to call our own and dinner parties to hold whenever we could afford it.  We made out grocery lists and poured over cookbooks checked out from the university library.  And what meals we had.  I learned a lot of great Texas recipes and she learned a lot of "northern" food.  My mother was born in Philadelphia, PA and so her cooking stems from that area.  I learned to fry and Vanessa learned to bake.   It was a match made in heaven.  And that's where the bread baking began in earnest.   It was small stuff at first...homemade bread and rolls.  But it progressed to croissants and puff pastry and whole grains and multi-grains and artisian loafs. 

If I had known then what I know now I would have taken a different path.  I would have gone to culinary school but for some reason that just did not occur to me.  I don't think that I would have ever wanted to run my own restaurant but instead I would have liked to have had a bakery.  I don't think the high stress level of putting meals in front of customers would have suited me.  But working early in the morning with yeast and dough appeals to me on so many levels.  The silky feel of working good yeast dough between your hands is akin to nervana to me. 

My husband has reaped the benefits of homemade bread from the time that we began to date because by then I had stopped buying bread altogether and was making my own entirely.

There is just something about taking a loaf of bread out of the oven and smelling that wonderful yeasty aroma that makes my soul sing.  I do it because I love it.  I do it because it fulfills me in a way that nothing else does. 

So here's a recipe for a simple loaf of bread that's easy to do...no muss, no fuss and maybe it will make your soul sing as well. 

 ALMOST NO-KNEAD BREAD
(makes 1 small loaf)
1 Dutch Oven with Lid
3 cups (15 oz.) all-purpose flour.  (I like King Arthur)
1/4 teaspoon yeast
1 1/2 teaspoons table salt
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons water (7 oz.)
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (3 oz.) beer...the worse tasting the beer...the better the bread.  I use Bud Light
1 tablespoon white vinegar
(This recipe can also be doubled, which I do quite often and it works out wonderfully.)

Whisk flour, yeast, and salt in a large bowl.  Put water, beer and vinegar in a measuring cup and add one to the other. Fold the dry mixture into the wet mixture till you have a somewhat shaggy dough. 
Put plastic wrap over the top of the bowl and set it somewhere to rise...anywhere from 8 to 18 hours.

Next morning, take the dough out of the bowl and put it on a lightly floured piece of parchment paper.  Knead just a couple of times and turn whole piece of dough into a rough shaped ball.  Put parchment paper and dough into a small skillet or bowl.  Cover with cloth and let rise for 2 hours. 

About 30 minutes before baking, put the Dutch oven with the lid on into the stove and preheat to 500 degrees.  Once the two hours is up, take the dough and put it into the Dutch oven.  Be careful as the Dutch oven will be screaming hot and you don't want to burn yourself.

Immediately turn the heat down to 425 degrees, put the lid back on and bake for 30 minutes.  When the 30 minutes is up, take the lid off the Dutch oven and bake for another 30 minutes.  
Carefully remove the whole kit and kaboodle from the oven and remove the bread from the pot and transfer to wire rack and cool to room temp.  
Recipe adapted from a Cook's Illustrated recipe.