Category Archives: Uncategorized

Diet Coke Gets Even Better

I know, I know, you are thinking this is impossible.

You are thinking that Diet Coke is perfect, and you can’t make perfect better.

But, as I’m sure you all know, the only thing that can compete with Diet Coke is chocolate.

Please watch Ivy’s demonstration on how to make Diet Coke even better.

Take one chocolate cake mix,

and one can of Diet Coke,

combine,

and mix.

Pour into a pan and bake.

Then all that’s left is to frost,

(and don’t let your little sister help, she puts the frosting in the wrong places.)

and decorate.

And there you have it Diet Coke made even better.

It is possible that because Ivy made me a birthday cake all by herself I’m a bit biased as to the results.

But hey, that’s my daughter,  it’s my birthday, and I think the cake was awesome!

Dinner Fail

Tonight dinner was a failure.

We all dutifully ate some and declared it bad.

Then, after crossing out the recipe in the cookbook with a Sharpie marker, John looked at the remains on the table and said, “What are we going to do with it?”

Ivy gleefully answered, “Feed it to the chickens!”

I thought that was ridiculous, this was clearly something the pigs would enjoy more.

We dropped it off for them on our way out the door.

McDonalds may not be fantastic, but at least it’s dependable.

*note: This is not a picture of the pigs eating our dinner, our dinner was not that good looking.*

Please Send Earplugs

Last May Clara spent most of the month looking like this:

We eventually discovered that she had a dairy allergy, changed her diet and she stopped looking quite so sad and pathetic.

A whole year later there have been so many changes – she walks, she talks,  steals toys from her sister,  helps feed the dogs, cooks with me, throws objects in the toilet, identifies poop in any location and no longer has that sad and pathetic look about her.

Nope, now when we have days of extended screaming for mysterious reasons she just looks mad.

What a difference a year makes!

Push Up Confession

I have a confession.

I haven’t done my push ups in over two weeks and I’m scared to start again.

I’m not sure how it got to be so long, something about a lot of excuses and then getting sick on top of it and skipping them even though I know if you start skipping workouts it gets really hard.

So tomorrow I’m diving back in again.

I know there are a pile of people who have started doing push ups as well, and I know that there’s a really big chunk of that pile that has slowly dropped out.

I’m hoping a few of you will join me getting back on the program again.

Then tomorrow when we’re done with our sets and our bodies have been reduced to a quivering mess and we are irritated that we can’t do as many reps as we used to, we’ll know we aren’t alone.

If the misery loves company angle isn’t motivating enough for you try this:

Nine of us have posted our push ups on the Google document. Only one person was able to do more than 50 push ups in the beginning and many were under ten.

Now the nine of us since February have collectively done…

10,215 push ups!

Amazing.

So make it your May resolution, call it a favor to yourself (Here is Jenny’s post if you need a reminder why), call it my early birthday present, call it whatever you like and do your push ups tomorrow, (or start the program, http://hundredpushups.com) and let us know how it goes!

Push Up Log can be found here: https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AkCenthS4rIwdFowaS1ja1JmNEtraFFYalhOY1JNSlE&hl=en&authkey=CNvHxIQB#gid=0

Thank Goodness For Grandma!

Once again we were hit with a nasty flu bug here.

Except this time it was really nasty and it got me the worst.

Without my Mom to step in to take care of me, and the kids, and the pigs, and the sheep, and the chickens, and the other chickens, and the ducks, and the dogs, and the quail I’m not sure what would have happened but it would have been really ugly.

I know this for sure because by Friday I was feeling well enough to brave a few hours of the day on my own.

They didn’t go well.

During rest time Ivy didn’t rest.

Instead she gave a lamb a bath in the yard.

There are so many things wrong with that I can’t even talk about it.

I’m just thankful we seem to be back to normal.

I’m pretty sure the sheep are grateful as well.

Jellybean Worthy

Clara’s got a priority problem.

Or perhaps, more accurately, a poop fixation.

She’ll show you her face full of ashes…

…but all she wants to talk about is the poop on her boots.

As the mother I know full well that she’s got poop on her boots and where it came from.

A face full of ashes on the other hand could use a bit of explaining.

Miraculously this girl did not further morph into reason #956 we do a lot of laundry.

So I gave her a jellybean –

after I got the ashes out of her nose.

Our Life

Once again I’m being reminded that it has been many days since I’ve had something to share, but there have been reasons for this people, many reasons!

There was a horse fair, and a ballet recital and a trip to visit Sarah, that included a birthday tea party for her daughter. Once that was all done and we were back home it was Monday night.

At this point I did at this point attempt to put together a little post of our weekend fun, but then Tuesday night happened.

Tuesday night, was quite a night.

Things happened.

Lots of things.

All at once.

From what I can remember, though not necessarily in this order, it included things such as: peeing on the floor, breaking a glass, dogs barking, cars honking, chasing ducks off the road barefoot, Kamikaze kids jumping off the couch, false starts on dinner, missing ingredients, the cook being locked in the kitchen for protection from the kids and dogs,  messing up recipes, John announcing that he was “OUT OF PATIENCE!”, some pee in a potty chair but mostly on the floor, dinner eaten, bath time, blueberries eaten- everywhere, and finally the real reason why there has been no updates since Friday. Pee in the surge protector that the computer plugs into.  It was chaos, and through most of it I was cooking dinner in the kitchen laughing so hard I was crying.

Laughing with John because this is our life.

It’s a great life.

But some days….some days you’ve just got to laugh.

Assumptions

Due to the nature of John’s job (synthetic organic chemist who makes pharmaceutical drugs) and our little farming venture, we often confuse people.

Those who know of John’s work first are shocked to find that we also pasture raise chickens.

Those who know we sell free-range eggs are sometimes slightly horrified to find out John is involved in the pharmaceutical industry.

Somehow this all has a tendency to spill over in the assumptions of the food we eat. Of course being assumptions, they are almost always wrong and mildly irritating.

Tonight I’d like to set the record straight:

We eat…

… almost exclusively meat that has been raised by us or shot by us,

-except when we eat at McDonald’s.

….a large amount of seasonal food,

-except when I just really need a bunch of grapes.

…local food

-except when we eat 30 lbs of clementines from Spain.

…Diet Coke, lots of Diet Coke,

-and water.

…no dairy products (especially if your name is Clara),

-except when we do (unless you’re Clara).

…Tostidos Salsa con queso  (when Clara is asleep),

-and homemade salsa.

…no prepackaged food,

-except corn dogs.

…98% of our meals after making them from scratch,

-except when we get Chinese food.

…no yeast,

-except when everyone but me eats a bag of pretzels.

…healthy,

-except when we don’t.

So – now you know.

It used to concern me, this crazy dichotomy of food, (Were we turning into crazy hippies? Were we poisoning and malnourishing our kids when we fed them a hot dog?) but now I’m good with it. We eat at McDonalds and when I’m at the big supermarkets I make my food choices the best I can for my family, our budget and our beliefs. Sometimes I get funny looks when people find out I choose my butter on the basis of where it was made and I don’t come close to having the approval of the hard core, local, organic folks, but it works for us.

I’m going to continue raising my pastured chickens and as I admire them running around living the good life in the sunshine, I’ll take a swig of my Diet Coke and all will be right in my world.

Then someone will ask me if I saw on T.V. how Diet Coke would kill you.

And I’ll tell them no I don’t have a T.V.

And the assumptions will start all over again….

The Indecisive Chicken

My last week has been consumed with the frantic finishing (and starting) of the new mobile chicken coop.  Some times work went more smoothly than others, as you could have perhaps guess from reading about my feelings on the second law of thermodynamics, but laws of thermodynamics and all the chickens moved in last night. The new coop is located far out in the pasture away from their old coop in the yard. Many of the chickens spent a happy afternoon scratching through the leaf litter in the woods and poking about decisively on their never ending search for tasty treats. Other chickens slowly made their way back into the yard and familiar territory.

Knowing that chicken bedtime was bound to be a bit interesting just before dusk I grabbed a few pizza crusts and headed outside. I was hoping that I could lure those chickens that had come back into the yard back to the new coop in the pasture.  It started out fantastic. I gave the “hey chickens” whistle and they willingly followed me  right up to the edge of their old home range. Then they’d start looking a little worried, and scoot back into the yard. Meanwhile the chickens out at the new coop in the pasture wanted to come back and eat with the other chickens. They would have come straight back but dark was coming and chickens have a very definite sense of bedtime. They just couldn’t get that far away from the new coop where they knew they could roost for the night.  What followed was a lot of me whistling for chickens and watching them run to the middle no mans land, panic and run back the way they came. On rare occasions a chicken would switch “sides”, but not necessarily in the direction I was hoping for.

I can already hear my Dad saying that a chicken can’t be indecisive, that that would require brains. It is true that chickens don’t have the reputation of being the brightest bird but tonight their little brains were working so hard I could practically hear their thoughts.

They went something like this:

I see some of my friends! I should go see what they are eating! OH, this is getting really far away from my coop… It’s almost dark! I’M ALL BY MYSELF! Which way? WHICH WAY? I see chickens eating, I see chickens roosting, a new coop, my old coop…. OH dear, oh dear….. AHHH I CAN’T TAKE IT!

and the chicken would sprint back the direction it came from.

It would have been more amusing had it not culminated in me carrying 25 of my 35 chickens from the fence in the yard  out to their new home.

So if your Sunday evening is looking dull, just come on over. You can watch indecisive chickens panic over which direction to head followed by me carry piles of chickens through the dark to their proper location.

Who needs a T.V. when you’ve got entertainment like that?