Well, we learned something new this weekend. Husband and I are pretty facile navigating our way around Tex-Mex and Mexican cooking, but we ran into a spice mixture we had never heard of-Sazon. It is a combination of Achiote (ground annatto), ground cumin, ground coriander, garlic powder, oregano, and salt. We made a Dominican red bean recipe in the Instapot that called for it, and, what a surprise, there it was in Cashwise grocery store! Unfortunately, the main ingredient in the Goya version was MSG, so we decided to make it at home. I wasn’t disappointed, as I don’t like the Goya company’s politics. I also don’t like MSG.
Who else but us would have a jar of sorely neglected annatto seeds in their cupboard? They ground up well, and we made our own Sazon seasoning, and the beans were delightful. Further research indicates it is a staple in Puerto Rican and Cuban cooking.
What new things have you learned lately? What Tex-Mex or Hispanic recipes are your favorites? How do politics influence your purchases?
The weather is all over the place. One day it’s 5° and windy and a little bit ugly out. One day it was 30° and almost sunny. I was seeing some 40s in the forecast but they’re gone now and it is teens and single digits, which I thought we were past. I’m ready to be done with winter.
Not much happening here on the farm, still finishing up bookwork, doing a few tweaks on Spring planting needs, and I am as boring as a one armed Lighting designer with post it notes covering my sling. Recovery still goes well, I’m off the pain meds, I’m tired of the sling already and I have over a week to go. At least it’s not five weeks to go. (The sling kinks a little at my wrist and that was bugging me. I solved that by stuffing a hotpad in there for more padding) I am moving slower than molasses in February but at least I have two legs to stand on. And I’m not wrestling ducks with one arm.
The bottom fell off one of our birdfeeders, it got to swinging in the wind and simply unscrewed. And squirrels, trying to get at the corn in the feed room, chewed through the cord of the tank heater down by the barn. The cord comes out through a crack in the feed room door, so it was in their way as they attempted to gain entrance. I took the cord back up to the shop and put a new receptacle on it; I can do that pretty much do one handed, then we fastened the cord higher up so hopefully it’s out of their way. We use this tank of warm water to thaw ice in the buckets that have froze. (The chickens like water out of a bucket better than the water in the heated water bucket.) We seem to have a lot of squirrels around this year. It’s driving the dogs nuts. Here’s a picture of Humphrey gazing out the window.
I’m having trouble washing my hands, it’s hard to wash ‘hand’. Dictation on the Mac laptop works pretty well. As does dictating to my phone. Trying to hit “Control, alt, delete” on the computer has proven difficult. Some of that is simply the keyboard being too far up on my desk.
Kelly has plowed the driveway, filled the birdfeeders, does chicken and duck chores morning and night, feeds the dogs, drives daughter around, drives me around, and tries to get some work hours in when she can. She is pretty impressive.
HOW DO YOU HANDLE HOT THINGS FROM THE OVEN?MITTS? TOWEL? SILICON CLAM THINGS?
We now have all our seeds for this summer’s garden. Husband told me last weekend he wants to grow 24 sweet peppers plants and 9 hot pepper plants. This alarmed me. I took him to the basement to show him that we currently have 30 pints of red chili pepper sauce in our freezers, made from a combo of both hot and sweet peppers. We use it in enchiladas and other Southwest dishes.
I asked him to imagine just how many peppers we could potentially harvest with 33 pepper plants. Last year we only had 15 plants. He assured me that he would use up most of the sauce in the freezer by the time the new peppers were ripe. He would bring extra fresh peppers to the Food Pantry next summer. I am doubtful. I remember churning out all that sauce last year, and I really don’t want to be making sauce all summer and fall. We renegotiated to 21 pepper plants. I still think we will have way too many peppers, but we shall see.
What do you have too much of? What is your favorite pepper dish? What are you growing in your garden this year? Any favorite sauce?
Because we are sustaining members of MPR and the pledge drive gets tedious, and because we always have some sort of music playing, I put a random CD on the other night, The Child Ballads by Anais Mitchell. I learned about it from Dale and TLGMS and Radio Heartland, and I was somewhat surprised to see Husband’s reaction to it. He was entranced by the music and stories. He charged downstairs and brought up a massive document he had printed off after purchasing the right to do so, of English Folksongs of the Southern Appalachians compiled by Cecil Sharp and Olive Campbell. Some of the Child Ballads were in that compilation.
Husband has always been fascinated by any music that has come from the British Isles to the Appalachian region, as that is the region his mother’s people from Scotland and the north and west of England, settled. We have a vast collection of old and obscure hymnals and song books that he has found on our travels and brought home. We both love folk music, but that music from that time and region holds special meaning for him. He took the The Child Ballads CD with him this week to his job in Bismarck so he could revel in it in the drive there and back.
What are you listening to in the vehicle these days?What folk music are you drawn to? Did you know Anais Mitchell wrote the lyrics, music, and book of the Broadway musical Hadestown?Why is folk music important?
I’ve always been a reader. I have a photo of myself “reading” to my little sister when I was about three. I knew all my books by heart, even when to turn the page; many folks thought I was reading well before I actually was. For all of my school life, I was reading above my grade level. When I was in fifth grade, I pulled “Hunchback of Notre Dame” off the school library shelf and the librarian told me it was “too old for me”. Like waving a red flag in front of a bull.
I’m also a serial reader; there is a book on CD in the car, audiobook on my laptop and assorted books in the bedroom and the living room. Right now I’m reading Eragon by Christopher Paolini (dragon book – thanks for the nudge MiG), Elementary She Read by Vicki Delaney (murder mystery), I am Thinking of You My Darling by Vincent McHugh (science fiction recommended by our Steve), Selected Poems by Amy Lowell (she was a fairly well-known poet in her day, writing at the turn of the 20th century) and finally The Peacocks of Baboquivari by Erma Fisk (memoir of a woman who lived alone for five months banding birds for The Nature Conservancy – I have NO clue where I got the idea about this one).
But why am I verklempt, you ask? Because I did not raise a reader. Saying this out loud is a little like committing hari-kari. I read to her constantly when she was young, she had a good library of books, she learned to read easily but to no avail; she has just never wanted to read. Right after Christmas I was amazed to see her toting a book around the house. Some kind of inspirational/self-help/current events thing. I teared up a little. Then three weeks ago she came to me and asked if she could use my Amazon account to buy.. wait for it… books! Now what you need to know is that asking to use my account is YA’s code for “will you buy it for me”. “OF COURSE YOU CAN USE MY ACCOUNT” I yelled as I hugged her. When the books showed up on Friday I was so excited — as I was taking the photo, you could have heard her eyes roll from a block away. She did tell me that I could read the books as well if I wanted to. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I had already read two of them.
Have you infected anybody with the reading bug? What are you reading right now?
Well, I must confess that I am becoming an increasingly fussy eater. I find myself being very picky at potlucks, and I never eat fast food. I wasn’t always like this, but time, experience, and my non-existent gallbladder have changed my preferences. I will no longer eat for the sake of conviviality.
I have to go to New Orleans in April for a regulatory board conference, and I am dreading all the shrimp I imagine that will be available. I despise shrimp. I heartily dislike its texture and flavor, and I equally despise the environmental impact of shrimp harvesting. I imagine there will be other things to eat there, but I am anxious. I may have to survive on beignets. My absent gallbladder may protest, but I can live with that. At least beignets are sweet.
I have tried to be an open, accepting person in my life, but there are times you just have to put your foot down and say “Enough “!
When have you uttered the ultimate “No!” How hard is it for you to put your foot down? Any suggestions for dining in New Orleans ?
Often times in my play therapy room, a toy is inadvertently broken. The child almost always feels horrible, and my stock response is “You didn’t want THAT to happen”, and there is no scolding and we move on.
Saturday, our three year old grandson and a female friend the same age were pretend sword fighting in the family room of our son’s house. Our grandson likes to pretend he is Darth Vader. (He has never seen a Star Wars movie, but knows about Vader.) His friend inadvertently wacked the large screen TV with the wooden block she was using as a sword, and the whole screen shattered. That girl packs a good punch. I am glad she wacked the TV and not our grandson. Our grandson announced at Christmas that he was going to marry her.
Son and DIL were having friends over for a Super Bowl party yesterday so a new TV was hurriedly purchased. I think that any future sword fighting will take place outside. We don’t want THAT to happen again.
What do you remember breaking as a child?Did you ever have any serious accidents? Have you ever participated in fencing or the martial arts?
I was in the hospital Wednesday for rotator cuff surgery on my left shoulder. Prognosis for recovery was six weeks in a sling and then a lot of therapy with full recovery taking eight months to a year. Woofda. Could be worse, I could still be milking cows. I think I got pretty lucky, after my dad retired from milking, I milked cows for 14 years and I don’t recall ever missing a milking due to injury. I remember a few times having a stomach bug, and I had to run up to the house to use the bathroom, and then come back and finish milking. And some days I probably moved pretty slow. But I don’t think I missed any milking’s other than random vacation days.
But it turns out my torn tendons were all old enough injuries that they couldn’t pull the tendons back into place. I will only need to wear the sling for two weeks, and then a lot of physical therapy to strengthen the muscles that are still there. And considering prior to Thanksgiving I didn’t know I had any issues, I would expect to be back to where I was then. And perhaps looking at shoulder replacement in 5 to 10 years. Yay! Only two weeks in a sling!
In November 1976, my dad had bunions removed from both feet at the same time. I was 12 years old. Dad hired a guy to come and do chores and milk the cows as Dad was supposed be off his feet for six weeks. That was a year it was cold and there was a lot of snow early in the winter. If I remember right, the guy only lasted a few days or a week, and then he broke the chain on the manure spreader and rather than fixing it, just parked it in the shed and went home. Well, you can’t leave a spreader full of manure sitting in freezing weather; it will freeze solid and we need to use it every day. You have to fix it and get it empty. That may mean unloading it by hand, but it needs to be emptied one way or another. Which Mom and I did. Then Mom and I laid in the snow fixing while dad shouted instructions from the living room window. The guy was fired and mom and I did the milking and chores. And it wasn’t long before dad had bread bags over the casts on his feet and he was back down in the barn. He didn’t really have a choice. I’ve asked my siblings if they remember helping or hearing about this. They don’t. Funny the things we forget or put out of our minds.
Point being: At least I’m not trying to milk cows with one arm.
Here’s a photo of the dogs, Bailey and Humphrey, keeping an eye on a squirrel.
I was / am excited and scared, the shoulder was giving me muscle spasms or something about once a week or so, and they hurt like the dickens, so I hope that will be gone. They did clean up the site and realign some things and I got a balloon in there holding it all in place. And I keep reminding myself, in the long run, this will be nothing. I am still so fortunate.
There’s a farmer on youtube called ‘The Harmless Farmer’, Andy Detwiler. He impresses me with the things he can do with his feet. And we’ve got a friend who’s been dealing with cancer for years. So, a sore shoulder for a few months? One arm in a sling for 2 weeks? This is nothing. Keep the perspective.
What helps keep your perspective?
Help me with fun phrases or stories for the sling:
Daughter’s BFF is in grad school in a southern state getting her MFA in vocal performance. I have known her since she was in Grade 1, and consider her a second daughter. She has a beautiful voice, and recently sang in a lead role in a production of The Bartered Bride. She is a cook and loves to bake. She didn’t get a Christmas box of goodies from us, but I baked some of her favorite cookies and sent her a Valentines box yesterday filled with the cookies as well as cocoa mix, interesting pasta, pasta seasoning, fancy pizza crust flour, and a Mr. Rogers figurine who speaks in his actual voice about being wonderful for who you are and asks about your neighbors if you push the button on the trolley.
Her street address is IOOF St. I think this is one of the oddest street addresses I have seen. The clerk at the UPS store sure thought it was odd. I am curious if Baboons know what IOOF stands for, and what other odd or interesting streets names they are aware of. I have my grandfather’s OF sword.
What are some interesting street names you have encountered? What street names would you like to invent? Know any OF’s? What are your memories of Mr. Rogers?
YA cares way more about her hair, her make-up and her clothing than I care about mine. I think I’ve said here before that I don’t even own make-up and I only take the blow dryer to my hair about once a year. And these days, wearing a pair of jeans instead of sweatpants is really dressing up. So it didn’t surprise me when she wanted a pair of really sharp “hair scissors” for her birthday recently. I assumed it would figure greatly into her quest to rid her world of split ends.
On Saturday we were watching the Olympics (the new mixed speed skate relay is fascinating) when she turned the scissors on me. She’d been hinting (rather aggressively) the last few weeks that my hair is getting too long and scraggly. Although I was a little worried she would chop off more than I wanted, which she has done before, when she brought it up again, I relented.
I should have known that wouldn’t be the end of it. Then she wanted me to blow dry it – I told her if she wanted my hair dry right away, she would need to do that herself. After she spent way too long (in my estimation) drying and fluffing my strands, she decided that she needed to bring the straightener into my room as well because my ends were “curling too much”.
All of this cutting and blowing and straightening took about 45 minutes and I will admit that I’m not the most patient. For some reason that I don’t understand, the commercials showing on the tv coverage of the Olympics were bothering me — and more than usual since I was already ramped up about the hair fuss. To combat my annoyance I grabbed a book off my bedstand and muted the tv.
So there we were, watching the Olympics, reading and running a hair salon in my bedroom all at once. Multi-tasking at it’s best!
Trail Baboon 