Lost and All Alone

Normally I'm so busy I don't have time to think about anything seriously for more than a minute or two.  When I'm not running around like a chicken with my head cut off, I'm usually doing something in the house that needs my attention...right...now.

This morning, however, I've sat down to write and I realize I have nothing serious going on.  Nothing.  Nada. Zilch.  Oh there are things I could do, but they're not pressing.  Nothing has a deadline within five minutes.  There isn't a domino effect in place for five million things that have to get done today.  I can actually sit and drink my coffee and not DO anything.

I feel lost.

These moments are so rare in my life, I don't know what to do with them when I get them.  I feel like I should be doing something....but wait....no, nothing to do.  How weird.

Sister has gone to her day job, and my mom is snoozing in her chair.  Even the dog is snoring on the floor.  I feel so alone.  Absolutely, wonderfully, carefree, alone.  I can sit and sip my coffee, and surf the web.  I've caught up on Alabama's wonderful success in national signing day yesterday, I've rolled my eyes at the latest machinations of Congress to squeeze every last drop of financial blood out of me, and I've even glanced into a bit of celebrity news to try and figure out who these people are.  If I get really wild and wooley, I might just sit down and read a book.  (Yea, believe it or not, I'm still a fan of those big blocks of churned up tree trunks.)

So I'm feeling lost and all alone and I have to admit, I could get used to this...but no...wait....something to do......tomorrow.

Learning How to Cook - Again

Patrice Lewis, on her excellent blog www.rural-revolution.com recently posted about cooking from scratch.  The gist of the post was making "box" dishes from scratch instead.  Along with some very good advice on cooking utensils to have on hand and items to keep in the pantry, she posted some recipes and invited her readers to post their favorite homemade items that most people these days make from a box, such as mac and cheese, pancakes, muffins and such.

It all sounded so delicious it made me hungry.  I found though that I couldn't really use any of the recipes that were posted much to my dismay.

Last year we discovered that my mom is lactose intolerant and my sister has gluten issues.  Since then cooking has become quiet adventurous in our house.  With wheat and milk out of the picture, most of the "box" recipes that are "go-to" for home cooks just don't work for us no matter if they are from scratch or out of a box. 

Basically now everything is from scratch, because wheat and milk are in just about everything in a box (explain to me why beef broth needs wheat in it.?  Check out the label on College Inn broth.  It's there.) 

Anyway, rant aside, we don't eat a lot of baked goods due to the issues, but I've been experimenting with various flours and liquids to achieve some tasty treats.  My two main flours are corn and rice.  I bought a grain grinder to make my own fresh instead of buying those expensive little packages in the exotic foods section.  I can buy a 50 pound bag of rice for about the same price as five pounds of ground rice flour.  I can make my own flour, it's fresher, cheaper and still make rice the regular way if I want to.

 I'm not real excited about using the gums and pastes normally put in store purchased food (weird and very expensive) to make non-gluten flours stick together, so I'm playing with my flour to egg ratio to up the protein needed to hold it all together (good thing I've got chickens!)  I've had lots of practice runs ending up being chicken food (another reason to buy a cheap bag of rice and grind it yourself) instead of gracing our table, but I'm getting there.  A peach cobbler made with corn flour can be downright tasty.  I try to do a lot of converting of recipes I find that sound great, but you have to work at it, because just replacing wheat flour with rice flour won't work and you won't like the results.

Rice flour cookies are very crisp straight out of the oven, but after a day, they can be like chewing on a rock.  I'm finding that a bit of applesauce in the mix helps to soften them up.

A cup of self-rising corn meal run through the grinder for a finer flour mixed with a tablespoon of baking powder, one egg, a half-cup of sugar, a teaspoon of cinnamon and a cup of lactose-free milk makes an absolutely fabulous cobbler dough.  Melt a stick of butter in your favorite baking dish, pour the dough in, drop the fruit of your choice on top and bake until golden brown.  Yum.

Lactose free milk is available out there now as are milks made from soy, almond and a host of other grains and nuts.  They're okay and in cooking you can't tell the difference. There is also a host of pastas made from different grains.  Some are good, some just cook into mush.  Finding out which ones do what is a matter of trial and error.

I'm also finding out that some things just don't need wheat.  Libby's canned pumpkin has a great pumpkin pie recipe on the side of the can.  On a whim, I made up the pie filling and then poured it into a pie plate that I sprayed with non-stick spray and stuck it in the oven - no pie shell.  It turned out great.  The filling held together wonderfully and the taste wasn't interrupted with pie crust thickness.  I've also tried this with an egg custard pie with similar results.

What I can't seem to find a substitute for is cheese.  There is a soy alternative out there, but it's not very good and doesn't cook worth a flip.  Oh well, maybe someday.

In the meantime, the experiments continue.....

Are People Really This Stupid?

A young man in South Carolina is facing a fine and possible jail time by virtue of being stupid.  It was raining outside and he was pet sitting his parent's dog.  Not wanting to get wet, he decided to simply hang the dog out of a second story window to let it do it's business, and then pull it back in.

I ask you now, can people really be that stupid?

Apparently they can.

Someone saw the incident, took pictures and reported it.  Good for them.

This act of stupidity leaves me rather speechless.  What type of people are we raising these days?  What are they going to do when faced with problems more serious than taking the dog out for a walk when it's raining?  It boggles the imagination.

Unsportsmanlike Conduct

Congratulations go out to the Auburn Tigers for their win over Alabama in the "Iron Bowl"

Let me make this perfectly clear.  I am not an Auburn fan.  I am an University of Alabama graduate (class of 1983).  I was screaming and yelling all the way for the Tide on Saturday.  It was painful to watch that last play.

I WILL NOT, however, be ugly about the loss.  Some of the things I have heard and seen this year for the game is enough to put you off football altogether.  This rivalry is so bitter that it's even led to murder in one case.  It's getting to where it's downright embarassing.

And it's coming from both sides.  Auburn fans can be just as bitter and ugly as can Alabama fans.  The name calling is no longer funny.  It's nasty and shows the worst in human nature.  It also makes the rest of the country look at this state and know they were right in thinking that we act like a bunch of redneck hicks that will literally kill each other over a sporting event.

Oh Please!  There are enough things going wrong in this country that are really important.  Football isn't one of them.  In fact, football should be a way of forgetting our problems and having a good time during times that aren't so good.  Instead, except for the 60 minutes of playing time on the field, football in this state has become something to dread, because some redneck is going to do something stupid, get himself in trouble and as he's being led away to jail, scream "Roll Tide!" or "War Eagle!"  Well that certainly reflects well on the state, now doesn't it?

The kicker for Alabama missed field goal attempts.  He's getting death threats?  The comments posted by readers at the end of articles about the game are so full of threats, demeaning comments,  f bombs, and other foul language that they should be censored for everyone under 50.

What amazes me more than anything is that most of this vitriol is from people who have never even actually been to either school.  So many people around here were just worked into a lather about the whole thing, but when I thought about it, it occured to me that I'm the only person I know that actually attended the University of Alabama.  I know only one person that went to Auburn University and he's a very nice fellow.  In fact, I ran into him on Monday and congratulated him on the win.  He in turn commiserated with me on the loss.  We parted on the best of terms.

That's the way it should be.  It's a game people.  Let it go.  Congratulate the Auburn fans.  Console the Alabama fans, and gear up for next year.

Congratulations Auburn.  Best of luck on the SEC championship.  I'll be pulling for you.  Roll Tide!

Ouch!!!!

It was 23 degrees this morning when I stuck my nose out the door.  I immediately withdrew my nose from the outdoors, back into the warm house and slammed the door against the encroaching cold.  Three seconds of that was about to become painful, so I avoided it.

We get cold weather here in the deep south, just generally not this soon in the year.  It should be somewhere in the 40s and 50s, not the 20s.

We had a very cool summer this year.  It never got really hot, except for a couple of quick jabs, and we had lots of rain, which is just weird.  The earth never really got a lot of heat to absorb, so it could radiate it back at us.  The "experts" say that doesn't make any difference in what kind of year you have, but I'm not so sure.  Anyway, I've been saying all along that we were going to have a bad winter.  Just saying it though doesn't make it feel any better when it gets here.

And the first cold weather always seems to hurt worse than it does in the depths of winter.  My system hasn't adjusted and its not an instant turnover.  The first few days of cold, I never have enough layers on and I always get that bone chilling cold that you can't get rid of.

It's been getting steadily colder over the last couple of weeks, so I did get a running start.  I had pulled out my boots I bought from LL Bean when I used to live in Vermont.  They are old and worn, but they keep my feet warm and that's what counts.  I also found my heavy coat, made in Russia, (and we've all heard what the winters there are like) and have it on hand.  Gloves, scarves and mittens have all been turned out and are waiting in a basket by the door.

I'm late on winterizing the house, but I stopped by the DIY big box store yesterday and got the materials I needed to get to work.  It's suppose to warm up over the weekend, so I know what I'll be doing.

I went through the yard and picked up all the fallen sticks and made myself a box of kindling and put it on the porch.  I also pulled my little wagon full of firewood on the porch and I'm ready to light the woodstove.  The porch keeps the wood out of the house, but it's also out of the rain and all I have to do is take one step outside to grab a log.  Love it.

I have plenty of food in the house and I just got the heating unit serviced and it's working well.  Next week I've got to call and get some gas delivered, but other than that, I think I may be ready to hibernate for the winter.

I am so blessed and have so much to be thankful for.  I hope you all are having as wonderful a Thanksgiving weekend.

Giving Up

I've just about reached my toleration limit with the electronic devices in my life.  Our lives have become so complicated lately that we can't function without them.  And nowadays they overlap each other.  This is where my frustration comes into full play.

I love my blog.  I want to spend more time posting on it and letting my friends know what is happening on the farmette.  But posts without pictures are basically boring, so now I've got the computer AND a camera of some sort involved.  As time has progressed it's become easier and easier to do that.  Cords have been exchanged for cards, and wireless is the way to go.  Sure.

Seems like the easier it's gotten though, the more convuluted has become the path to get there.  You have to have the right software, the right hardware, the right accessories and a bit of knowhow to get it all done.  And of course, all this costs money, the commodity that I'm shortest on at the present time.

And if one part bites the dust, I'm screwed.  Welcome to my world at the moment.  My camera has been down for some time now and is showing no signs of coming back to life.  Hence, I have no photos for my blog, hence I have a boring blog, hence I have not been writing.  So I just give up.  I intend to keep writing, but you're just going to have to put up with no pictures, or ones that are old.

Bear with me.  I'm saving my pennies to buy a new camera, and hopefully it will be soon.

Surprises Big and Small

I have a variety of layers in my hen flock.  They lay all sizes and colors.  I get eggs that are white, brown, beige, green and even blue.  It makes for a lovely carton of eggs.

 

 



Occasionally I get a really big egg.

But for the most part, my eggs are just average side.  They would be sold in the store as large or medium size eggs.

 

 



 

But then last week, I picked up this egg in the hen house.

 

 



It looks like a normal egg, but there was something a bit different about it.  When you put it up against a  regular size egg, this is what you get.

The pictures just don't do it justice.

 



Of course, you can't just leave an egg like that.  I had to see what was inside.  I was amazed at how hard the shell was on it.  I had to give it three really hard whacks just to get it to crack.  Finally it came apart.

 

 

 



 





 A small white with a line of yolk in it.  Actually, I was a bit surprised that it had any yolk at all.  Eggs are fascinating things.