Call Back

If you have gone a little way ahead of me, call back--
'Twill cheer my heart and help my feet along the stony track;
And, if perchance, faith's light is dim, because the oil is low,
Your call will guide my lagging course as wearily I go.

Call back, and tell me that He went with you into the storm;
Call back, and say He kept you when the forest's roots were torn;
That when the heavens thundered and the earthquake shook the hill,
He bore you up and held you when the very air was still.

O friend, call back and tell me, for I cannot see your face;
They say it glows with triumph, and your feet bound in the race;
But there are mists between us, and my spirit eyes are dim,
And I cannot see the glory, though I long for word of Him.

But if you'll say He heard you when your prayer was but a cry,
And if you'll say He saw you through the night's sin-darkended sky,
If you have gone a little way ahead, O friend call back--
'Twill cheer my heart and help my feet along the stony track.

~author unknown.

Food. It Does a Body Good.

It's wicked hot up here.
When our "ancestors" built this house back in 1832 they didn't leave room for central air ducts.  They also built the ceilings nice and low to trap the heat during those long, cold winters.  So we're kind of hot.  My tiny kitchen gets super hot, when used.  My solution: don't use it!  Brilliant.  Oh, but we still have to eat?  Everyday?
How then do we eat full, healthy meals everyday AND keep my brow dry?
The Crockpot.  She's not just for winter time anymore!  I do the work in the cool morning hours, and there's no giant heat source running in the kitchen.  Just a cute, little pot. (Mine is actually really big, but you know what I mean.)
Using the Crockpot in Summer has really challenged my creativity.  Maybe the heat is making my brain sluggish, but when I see a Crockpot I think of Chili and Golden Autumn Stew. That's it. When I think of Summer food I think of the grill.  I did that last Summer, and let me tell ya'. That thing puts off A LOT of heat.  I wasn't sweating in the kitchen, but I was boiling outside.
So. Summer Crockpot ideas.  I've found that Mexican food bodes well with Summer heat.  I did some chicken tacos via Crockpot that were delicious, and so easy.  I did Taco Soup--wonderful.  Last night we had Tex-Mex Chicken and Rice--so easy, so filling, so good.  In lieu of grilling burgers or chicken for sandwiches, I've done Sloppy Joes in the Pot, as well as BBQ Pulled-Chicken.  What I'm really excited about, though, are my Fancy Franks and Beans.
We love Red Beans and Rice, but it is a cold weather meal in our house.  We love it because it is super yummy, extra filling, and you can make a ton of it for next to nothing.  You can also leave the meat out and still have a complete meal.  I've been trying to think of a Summer alternative for years.  I have finally found it!
Fancy Franks and Beans.  The beans are white, and you use white wine and fresh herbs for your flavor.  Although you use a lot of herbs, they are whole and bunched during cooking and removed before serving.   Your sweet kids (and husband) don't have to look at a bowl of dark, green broth, trying to figure out how to convince you to NOT make them eat it. :)  The flavor is very full and complex, but also clear and light.  It is perfect for Summer!  Here's the recipe:

Fancy Franks and Beans

(these quantities are for a large Crockpot and lots of empty bellies. you can easily cut it down to size.)
ingredients~
1 lb. bag great northern beans, soaked overnight
olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
9 garlic cloves, minced*
2-3 pounds smoked sausage (or Italian sausage, if y'all like that sort of thing)
2 cups dry white wine
15 fresh parsley stems
15 fresh sprigs thyme
5 fresh sprigs oregano
4 bay leaves
4 chicken bouillon cubes

prep~
~Put your soaked and drained beans into the Crockpot.  Add enough fresh water to allow the beans to cook thoroughly, turn Pot on high.  Add the bouillon and wine.
~Gather herbs into bunches and tie together with kitchen twine.  Add bunches and bay leaves to Pot.
~Heat olive oil in skillet and cook onions, garlic, and 1/3 of your sausage, cubed, until onion is softened.  Add to Pot.  Cook on high for about 6 hours, stirring occasionally and testing beans for softness.  As soon as the beans are soft enough, turn the Pot to low.
~At the 6 hour mark, remove the herbs and bay leaves from the Pot. (If there seems to be way too much broth, you may remove some and set it aside.)
~Slice the rest of your sausages and saute in olive oil.  Add to beans, and serve it up!  You can also top each bowl with chopped fresh herbs.

Everyone in this household loved this recipe--even Bruiser!  And all three kids liking the same bean dish is kind of a big deal.  The recipe is pretty simple, so you could take it any which way you want, depending on who you are cooking for, of course.  I'd like to taste it with some fresh, Summer tomatoes added at the end.  But my fam would barf. ;)

*Best garlic tip I've heard to date:  in your grocer's produce section, buy the fresh, peeled garlic.  Put it in your freezer, take out cloves as needed, leave @ room temp for about a minute, and then you can mince it.  Better flavor than anything dried or preserved and easier than peeling them yourself.

Not My Day

This is a tale of woe.  From the depths of despair and stupidity.  

Woe.

Woe to him who reads it.

Woe to her who lived it.

We have a 27'X27' (as in a 729 square foot) plot at the community gardens.  The cost of this giant plot is less than it would take B.daddy to build a tiny raised bed, not to mention saving him the labor, and it is along our favorite walking path.  There's a pond, wetlands, SWANS!  And so our story begins.

We've had the plot for a few weeks but were informed that most people don't plant until after Memorial Day because our cold climate is unpredictable.  (As if on cue we had a cold, rainy Memorial Day weekend.)  Before the plots were divvied out, the city had the ground tilled, and it looked great.  Dark, soft dirt everywhere.  Hardly a weed in sight. We didn't visit the plot between claim staking day and yesterday.  Why did I choose the first heat wave of 2013 to do my planting?  Well, because I'm a genius.  That's why.  After going all the way back to our house to retrieve the map to find the plot belonging to us--hiccup numero uno--this is what we found:

Hiccup #2

Okay.  I can handle this.  I can do this.  All I can do at this point is do this.  We pulled on our work gloves and got to it.  (B.daddy was at work making the money.)  The kids helped as best they could, and they complained a lot.  They observed that--except for Li'l Bit--they in fact did NOT want to be farmers, and they would even rather be at home doing school work.  This was after a full day of school work.  But after a few hours, we had pulled all the mammoth weeds and leveled the field so to speak.

We still had a lot to do the next day (today), but we had accomplished a great deal and had the achy backs and dirty knees to prove it.  I couldn't plant yet.  I was so anxious to get those plants into the ground yesterday, but I had no idea how much work that would entail.  The longer these plants are in containers, the greater chance they will die.  I can't seem to keep anything alive unless it is in soil that God Himself has put in place.  I.e. In the ground.

So we left our sad little plants on our plot to spend the night alone. (Trust me, they're better off that way.  Black thumbs, people.  Black thumbs!)

On the docket for this morning: rake and hoe.  Rake and rake and rake and rake, and if I'm lucky I'll get to hoe.  The morning was going well.  The kids had their picnic breakfast in the designated kid corner, and we even remembered sunscreen.  Their complaints--they weren't even working at this point--were shut down by some mean lady who showed up and said, "I do not want to hear one more complaint THE ENTIRE MORNING!  BUTTON IT UP!"  Weird.  Don't know who that was.  About fifteen minutes into my raking I heard a rustle in the weeds beside me.  Knowing for sure it would be a snake, I was pleasantly surprised to see this big dude:

Aww, how sweet.  He's like our very own garden pet.  Maybe he'll come cool himself near our plot all Summer. (Wait for it.)

The kids adored him, of course.  (As well as the rabbit and groundhog we saw.)  They tried to feed him a cracker.  He didn't bite.  He eventually burrowed under a pile of weeds and slept.  By that time I wanted to join him.  I was crazy hot.  I had been up since 4:30 for my morning workout, I hadn't eaten a thing, I have a highly pressurized head cold, but I was going to get my plants in the ground dadgumit!!  So I kept beating the ground.  Lift, whack, pull, lift, whack, pull.

I finally had enough weed-free ground for two or three rows, so I got to hoein'.  Much to my chagrin, hoeing is exactly like raking.  Same exact muscle movement being executed by the same exact muscles that the good Lord must have forgotten to give me.  Somehow, someway I hoed three sides.  My arms were spaghetti and I went to Kid Corner for cold water and a sit down.  Now B.daddy and I had met a guy on claim staking day. A very nice guy, he's running a nonprofit for kids and he was getting plots for them to work on together.  Well, as soon as my tushie hit the picnic blanket, I hear, "Oh, are you here to help?"  I look up and I see that guy.  In a split second, my brain--which should always work so well but DOESN'T--connected all the dots and I realized.  I'm on the wrong plot.

Talk about deflation.  I was so proud of all my hard work, only to find out I can't find one square plot on the simplest map known to mankind.  I had been to the plot before.  B.daddy held the map before me and explained exactly how to find our plot when I returned.  But did I find it? No.  I poured sweat over someone else's land.  

We can't switch plots.  His organization has four connected plots, and ours is too far away from it.  He did say they would help weed our plot tomorrow.  He has a few volunteers coming in for a work day.  Sometime between now and then I need to convince myself that I can get back out there and do the whole thing over again.  The thing that really, really stinks:  our plot isn't nearly as weedy as this one was.  I could have been so much further along.  I should conclude this paragraph with a metaphor pertaining to wishing for what you can't have.  But I screw those up all the time, too.

So I'm sitting here in front of my A/C.  I'm drinking ice cold lemon water, blowing my nose constantly, and rubbing Mentholatum on the raw skin.  I'm pouring out my far too wordy tale of woe to any and all who care to hear.

In short, I'm licking my wounds.