Here we are in December already! I nearly forgot about the first of the month photos yesterday - maybe because I'm having a hard time believing we have entered the last month of 2022. But here we are! Here's some of what's been filling the days here at Tangly Woods of late!
The cooler temps have encouraged turning the oven on more regularly again. So there's been a lot of baking happening and I'm enjoying seeing what I can get away with using 100% flour corn in. The last few days have included a couple successes and one flop! Ultimate milk mates with 100% flour corn are SCRUMPTIOUS! The cranberry squash oat pecan muffins that I made this morning also worked great with replacing all the wheat flour with flour corn. However, my 100% flour corn rolls are not rolls and hardly rose and are the densest biscuits I've ever consumed. With about a 50/50 ratio of bread to butter or jam or cheese they are edible (along with a large glass of liquid to wash it down). You win some, you lose some! If Alida is awake in time, she will be found beside me in the kitchen or getting things rolling on her own. She is excellent at baking and my wrists are grateful when she does the kneading for me!
A week ago we gathered with my sister, her wife and my parents for a non-traditional Thanksgiving meal of injera and wat. The food was delicious and was followed by an exciting game of 7 Up 7 Down. It should go down in history that my father was undefeated and had a perfect record for all 14 rounds!! Jason's day was less restful than it would have been had I not forgotten and let the chickens run on the day he had intended to do chicken selection for butchering (you cannot catch chickens once you let them run...). He forgave me, we shuffled our schedule around and he spent much of the afternoon sorting through the flocks and selected about 30 for the next day's butchering. Terah, Alida and I enjoyed reading a lot of the first book in the Birchbark House series. It felt like the right activity for us on that day - learning about what it was like to be an indigenous girl in this country during the time period when their lands were being encroached upon rapidly by European settlers. It's sad, fascinating, maddening, beautiful and so full of a depth of wisdom, spirituality and deep connection that I have so very much to learn from. I really savor my reading time with Alida and Terah right now...Our littlest is one silly gal - she had more fun making glasses out of her injera than eating it that day!
Last Friday, Jason had a full day of butchering ahead of him. The work day was shortened significantly by quite a team of helpers. While Kali and Alida went out for a day of town errands and running around together, my dad and Terah set up shop at the new butchering table and kept Jason busy trying to keep up with giving them birds to work on. I even joined a bit in the plucking process. Fall butcherings are so pleasant with the cooler temps and fewer bugs! Terah's little hands are perfect for the job of getting out all the internal organs. She was very pleased when she pulled a testicle out of one and I happened to ask her in that moment (without thinking much) if that was a lung. To my credit that is, I believe, what she had said she was going after. Not to my credit, they don't look anything like one another! But it pleases her very much when she gets to give her mom a chicken anatomy lesson. She wanted to learn the whole process from cutting the feet and head off onward. I'm not sure who had more fun - the teacher or the learner?!
After some days aging in the fridge, it was a team effort (between me and Jason) getting the birds into the freezer and jars. Jason spent a full day cutting up birds, getting meat off the bones for freezing and canning. To retain as much freezer space for the hog butchering coming up, we just froze breast meat and tenders and then canned leg and thigh meat. Then we cooked down all the carcasses for lots of rich broth. The root cellar's got several canner loads of broth and meat added to the shelves that we'll enjoy very much this winter. The only issue in the process was the gusty breezes happening in the 24 hours we were trying to use all our big burners including the propane ones outside. They kept getting blown out, which had me rather grouchy (especially in the middle of the night).
Between butchering day and processing days, we got to enjoy a long anticipated time together with Jason's brother, his wife and their sons. Jason worked a few days over at Emily and Jonas' alongside his brother, Ethan, which was really enjoyable for him. And we got to enjoy some time here hosting a meal all together and then a play time for the cousins. After our evening meal together, I had some strange burst of energy and found myself playing tag around our house with some of the kids. I did duck into a hiding place every now and then to catch my breath. During one such time, Landon paid me the highest compliment ever. I heard him ask the other adults, "Where's that big kid?" I lost my hiding spot because I couldn't keep from bursting out laughing!! ...So two days later when he wanted to come over to play tag with me again, I could not resist (even though I felt a headache moving towards migraine status). A little ibuprofen got me through a fun afternoon where we played soccer and tag, jumped rope, did flips and jumps off a ladder into the leaf pile, fed the pigs, collected eggs, tried learning to walk on stilts, and put a puzzle together. What a precious time!!! It had been so long since we had been able to savor even those few hours together.
Speaking of savoring precious times, after missing a few weeks we got to hang out with Luca yesterday again. It was the highlight of my day to walk into the room and have Luca turn to me, burst into a big grin, take off crawling in my direction and pull himself up on my pant leg so I'd pick him up. He's such a fun sweet cuddly baby - that is except for when he is falling asleep and he wants to explore my faces with his sharp fingernails! I know it would get old if it was every day for every nap, but it's kinda hilarious to try to move my face out of harms way while singing and feeding him a bottle and patting him and trying to do all I can to encourage sleep to overtake his active little mind and body!
Well, it's time for me to take off for town for the week's errands. So I'll finish with just a few quick things I'm excited about!
GARLIC! The patch looks so happy with all the perky bright green shoots!
AMAZING BOOKS! My current recommendation for anyone who has been parented, who is considering being a parent or is a parent...Oh, I think that's all of us?! It's sliding right into where my healing journey has me at at this juncture!
How can't you love him? So glad Terah drew a portrait of her daddy the other day! He's the one busy today working on the new bike shed. Another big project I don't fully understand and so can't be too helpful with, other than keep the rest of things moving as smoothly as possible (and rubbing his neck or back after a long day at it!)
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