Category Archives: holidays

2024, Family, Food, Gatherings, holidays, Travel

Macaroni Conundrum

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The last time I was with my whole family for the holidays was 1978.  Some years they gather without me, some years they don’t gather at all.  So when I announced that I was visiting Nonny two weeks ago, they decided that January Christmas festivities would be a grand gesture.  By the time I got the first text the week before my trip – the plans were so far down the road there was no turning back.

It was a potluck at Nonny’s little condo (truly the best choice considering the options) and all the obligatory dishes had been claimed.  My baby sister had three things on her list and since I knew she would be starting a new second job that week, I volunteered to do the macaroni and cheese.  She immediately sent me a recipe that is apparently my nephew’s favorite. 

Now I’ve made many a dish of mac & cheese over the years, using many different recipes, but looking at this one made me put my head in my hands.  It was two fully-typed pages and included four kinds of cheese, two kinds of pasta, garlic, green onion and quite a few spices.  In addition to the fact that Nonny has next to nothing in the way of kitchen utensils or baking dishes, I wasn’t even sure if she had the spices.  (I mentioned this last week when I was thinking of taking the spices in a bag in my luggage.)  I confirmed my suspicions – no big pot for pasta, no casserole dish to bake or serve it in, no grater for the four kinds of cheese.  In a funny turn of events, she DID have all the spices.  We could purchase an aluminum casserole, a grater and all the ingredients, but unless we also sprang for a big pot, I’d have to make two batches to have enough for everybody.  Not to mention the cost.

That’s when I remembered that YA had purchased macaroni and cheese from Costco for our Thanksgiving gathering and it had been pretty good.  I know there is a Costco about 5 minutes from Nonny’s place so the day before the party, we headed over there and picked up a pan of the stuff.  I doctored it up with some garlic powder, onion powder and paprika.  Via text that morning YA kept asking me if I had told my sister I was buying instead of making the mac & cheese.  I know my audience.  If I had fessed up that I was going to get it from Costco, my sister would have thrown up her hands in exasperation and said “Fine… I’ll just do it.”   One of my mottos has always been “it’s easier to get forgiveness than permission” so that’s the route I decided to take.

Turns out my sister didn’t care at all…. but my nephew did.  He kind of made a big deal about the fact that I should have let them know so HE could have made it. Of course, when we were divvying up the leftovers, I noticed that he heaped quite a bit into their Tupperware!  But I was happy to have not gone to too much trouble and Nonny was happy to not have more utensils in her teeny weeny kitchen.  And truth be told, the macaroni and cheese was really good.

I expect it will have to be another gathering for us to buy it again – it’s way too much for two folks, even folks who like macaroni and cheese as much as YA and I do.  But now I aware it’s there, you never know!

Do you have a favorite pasta dish?  (Either made or bought…)

2024, animals, holidays, Mysteries, Travel

Risky Business

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A 22-year old from Taiwan was apprehended at the Bangkok airport before Christmas after he was found to be carrying two Asian small-clawed otters and a prairie dog.  The man has the critters in socks, taped inside his boxer shorts; security officers were suspicious of the big bulge below the man’s waistband.

If I were a man, I’m not sure I’d put anything with claws and teeth (much less three of them) in my shorts.

I noticed this because I was just thinking about taking a small bag of spices with me to St. Louis last week.  I needed to recreate my sister’s mac and cheese recipe while I was at Nonny’s and was pretty sure that Nonny might not have all these spices.  I didn’t want to buy whole jars of them in St. Louis.  Putting spices in a ziplock made me think about another time I had spices in my suitcase.

About twenty years ago, my bag was the very last one to arrive on the luggage belt after I had come home from Thailand.  The sniffer dog did not alert on my bag but the fact that I had stood there so long waiting brought me to the attention of the sniffer dog’s handler.  Of course this was the one time I ever had something a little suspicious in my bag.  I had purchased some spices at a road-side stand while in Thailand… just baggies of powder with no labels.  Luckily none of them were white and one of them was filled with whole nutmegs, so it was easily explainable.  I was very glad I had the nutmegs and had not purchased anything even remotely white!           

Have you ever transported something you probably shouldn’t have?

Family, Food, holidays, home, Nature

Maple Syrup

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The son of my BFF is what we used to call “a gentleman farmer”.  He and his family live in the big farmhouse and they have goats and chickens, a massive garden and maple trees.  Every fall he taps the trees and boils down the sap to make syrup.  He also has black walnut trees which are harvested.  I don’t understand the science behind any of it but the output of the maples and the black walnuts varies greatly from year to year.  I try never to get my expectations up about whether I will see the syrup and about whether any of the syrup will be “maple black walnut”.

This year the maples did fine but not the black walnuts our holiday gift was maple alone.  This is not a problem for me and I was looking forward to a couple of months of fresh from the farm syrup.  (This is particularly good when paired with Ben’s fresh from the farm eggs!)  YA tends to shy away from foods that are “different”; this means that farm eggs and fresh maple syrup are usually left completely to me.  Last years black walnut syrup was all mine.  Delicious.

For some reason YA decided to taste this year’s syrup.  Then she decided to make pancakes that night.  She’s now made pancakes four more times since Christmas – she even went out and purchased a new box of Bisquick after she used up the box in the cabinet.  I’m thinking I’d better make some pancakes of my own pretty darn quickly or I won’t even get to TASTE this year’s syrup!

How do you like your pancakes?  Is there a place that makes particularly good pancakes?

2023, animals, Business, Family, Farming Update, holidays, Nature, pets, Uncategorized

Poof

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Todays Farming Updates comes from Ben.

Just like that, another year gone. 414 dozen eggs sold in 2023. April was the highest with 63 dozen sold. September was lowest at 20 dozen. I’m thinking in 2024 I’m gonna try recording how many dozen I box up rather than sold.

2023

We lost some really good friends. We made some new ones. We got a new dog. We finally took a weekend trip after a few  years of hunkering at home. We saw some fantastic theater,  (I was even in a show), had a visit from my friend Keith for the first time in 25 years, and got so much stuff done at home! Most of it had to do with the shop remodeling, but still, it’s a wonder to look over the list and see how much got checked off! Just for fun, I put the list in a spreadsheet and there was 221 line items. Twenty of them aren’t done yet. There’s always next year.

I was grateful to not fight major health issues this year, and to revel in the simple joy of walking up a hill or carrying some feed. Or just to wander up the road from barn to shed!

We got some concrete poured and started work on the shop. The crop year wasn’t the best. And if you enjoy snow, the year didn’t end well for you. There was a lot of snow at the beginning of 2023, but it melted fairly quick.

I’ve been rebuilding the carburetor for the 630 tractor. (Line item #192) I had a good start on it early this week, but the last few days I’ve been busy elsewhere. But in my “New Heated Shop”*‘ (*sort of) I can keep working. I try not to think about how the tractor itself is out in the UNHEATED part of the shed. But that’s just 8 bolts and a couple fittings… right? Easy Peasy. Might be the first thing of 2024 to check off that list! I think I’m even gonna use most of the parts. I spent an hour on the phone with the oldest parts guy at my John Deere store, and another guy who restores antique tractors, to figure out one piece on my carburetor that’s not in the pictures. They figured it out. Surround yourself with good people. That might be my goal for 2024.

2024- I need to renew my private pesticide applicators license. I haven’t used it more than a few times in the 25+ years I’ve had it, but I’ll renew it again, simply because it’s one more link to farming I want to keep.

Monday, 1/1/2024 I’ll go round up the mileage and hours on all the vehicles and tractors and fill in my annual mileage spreadsheet. I always enjoy that. I’ll need to start finding numbers for our assets page. That too is pretty interesting. I had a young lady tell me how rich farmers are. She didn’t know we farm. I had to explain a few things to her. We have a lot of ASSETS, and we have good credit. We may or may not have a lot of cash in the bank. Sometimes were rich in daughters only*, or dirt. Just not cash. Every farm is different.

*Thank you, Greg Brown.

Looking ahead, I’ve ordered a textbook for next semester’s class on creative writing which begins on 1/8. An in-person class so that should be fun. Got crops planned, will be ordering seed and inputs soon.

12/31/23 – There’s a lot of numerology regarding that. It’s interesting to consider. https://www.almanac.com/123123-meaning-123123

PHOTOS

Take some time to ponder this weekend. Ponder 2023. Ponder 2024. Remember and imagine.

WHO WOULD YOU CHOOSE TO SUROUND YOURSELF WITH?

2023, Fantasy, Gatherings, History, holidays, Media, Theatre, Uncategorized

Little Christmas

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Manitoba and southwest North Dakota have quite a few Ukrainian communities. We have several Ukrainian friends on both sides of the border. Some are members of the Ukrainian Orthdox Church, some the Ukrainian Catholic Church. Both denominations have married priests. I don’t quite understand that.

Both denominations also seem to celebrate Christmas on January 6th instead of December 25th. I personally don’t know if I could stand waiting until January 6th for Christmas to be over. I read with interest the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the Ukraine militantly moved Christmas celebrations to December 25th this year in a punch in the eye to the Russian Orthodox Church.

Husband was doing some idle research and found that in Scotland, Ireland, and in Amish communities in the States, January 6th is called Little Christmas, and there are traditions of the men that day doing all the women’s work. How big of them! I certainly hope in those societies that Christmas isn’t just for women to arrange and orchestrate! It certainly isn’t in our house.

I regret that our basement is all in disarray and our TV and various media players are all packed up waiting for carpenters and carpet layers. One of my favorite recordings is the 1998 production of Twelfth Night from Live From Lincoln Center with Paul Rudd and Helen Hunt in the leads. Watching that is a nice way to end Christmas.

When is Christmas over for you? Any memories or good quotes from Twelfth Night, by The Bard?

2023, Family, Gatherings, holidays, Uncategorized

Wrapping Woes

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Merry Christmas! All the Baboons have presumably opened their gifts by now. W e have always been Christmas Eve present openers. This year we are we are waiting until Thursday when we arrive in Brookings to open the family presents our daughter in Tacoma sent us to transport to South Dakota. We had to wrap them.

My mother was an expert wrapper, as is my best friend. I am a so-so wrapper. I find it annoying to wrap a gift that is only going to be ripped open in a fraction of the time it took to wrap it. I am just not meticulous in that way. Don’t even talk to me about gift tags, ribbons, or bows!

Husband is left handed and right eyed, and watching him try to wrap gifts is painful. He insisted wrapping my gift from our daughter, even though I offered to. He admits everyone will know he wrapped it. There are tears in the paper and an unusually large amount of tape. He is just happy he could do it.

When do you open Christmas gifts? What kind of a wrapper are you? How is your Christmas Day shaping up?

2023, holidays, Uncategorized, work

Forced Jollity

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Christmas parties at my behavioral health agency have always been somewhat controversial. Back in the days of the “good ol’ boys” administrators they were boozy and pretty wild evening affairs at the local Elks Club or Knights of Columbus. People brought their spouses or significant others. Husband and I once played harmonica and bass guitar, respectively, in a employee blues band that had our LDS (Mormon) psychiatrist standing on her chair and clapping and shouting. The occasional employee invariably had too much to drink and had to be talked to the next work day about their behavior. We now have far different administrators who are female and more concerned with team building. Our Christmas parties take place in our building during work hours, there is no alcohol, and only employees attend.

Our workplace has been pretty stressful this past year, and many of us are getting burned out. Our head administrator and new clinical director were intent that this year’s party was going to be fun and healing if it killed us. We had our Christmas party on Wednesday. There were about 35 of us. The party was from noon until 4:00. It was considered a staff meeting, so everyone was expected to attend. We had been randomly divided into four teams the end of November and each team had given the assignment to decorate one of the doors in the waiting rooms. They had to be decorated by December 10th. This was a team building exercise. We had to vote on which door was the best. The teams were also assigned various categories of foods to bring for the potluck meal. My team was assigned main dishes and sides. We were encouraged to bring “ethnic” foods. I brought butter chicken, North Indian mixed vegetables, homemade chapati, and basmati rice. (One of our new crisis workers is from India and got tearful eating the vegetables because it tasted like the vegetables her mother makes.) Our Filipina psychiatric nurse brought Lumpia and a chicken dish. Our Ukrainian Crisis Team lead brought cabbage rolls. There were lots of pasta salads, barbecue, snack chips, dips, and desserts.

We then had team competitions playing multiple rounds of Family Feud. My team won. We had a white elephant gift exchange. I got a Willie Nelson chia pet planter kit. I gave a 3-D model of the brain that we had in the basement.

I was pretty exhausted by 4:00 with all the socializing and snacking. (I had got up at 5:00 AM to fry the chapati.) Was the party fun? Yes and no. I don’t think forced jollity works real well, but it was nice to be at work and be able to talk to coworkers and not worry about productivity. Our administrators are already thinking of next December’s team building exercises. 

What do you think would make a good team building exercise for a work place? What are the best and worst work parties you had to attend?

2023, holidays, Media, Music, Uncategorized

Tchaikovskied Out

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Winnipeg has a rather renowned ballet company as well as a wonderful symphony orchestra. One December when we lived there we attended a production of The Nutcracker with some friends. These friends were good friends with two of the musicians, a cellist and a French horn player who were a couple, and who played in the Winnipeg Symphony as well as the orchestra for the ballet.

We all went back to our house after the performance. I was excited to play a new recording of some classical piece I had purchased, but the musicians pleaded with me to put on some jazz instead. They explained that they had played so many performances of The Nutcracker for Christmas that it felt like they had been eating nothing but sugar for weeks.

I confess I am getting tired of all the Tchaikovsky on the radio stream. I could also be happy if I didn’t hear John Rutter’s choral piece about the donkey for the rest of the season.

What is too much of a good thing ? What Christmas music are you getting tired of?

2023, Gatherings, holidays, Kids, Uncategorized, Words

Reading Aloud

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Thank the Lord! We are done with all our Christmas church performances for the year! Being a church musician can really be exhausting in December. Yesterday we played bells for two morning services and then sang, played bells, and read various things in a Lessons and Carols service in the afternoon. We had a great time, but are so relieved it is over.

I love reading lessons and scripture verses in church. I know how to pronounce some of the more difficult names, and I understand what I am reading so I think I can communicate the meaning of what is being read to the listeners. The words from the King’s College Bidding prayer are almost poetical and I was so happy to read them. Last night, several Grade 5 and 6 students read some of the Lessons, too, and they did a really good job.

I have always secretly wanted to narrate things like the public narrations of Joyce’s Ulysses that you can hear on public radio. I know that reading in public is torture for some. I love having wonderful words crafted by someone else to let others know about. 

How do you feel about reading in public? What would you like to narrate and read to others?

2023, Family, Gatherings, holidays, Kids, Uncategorized

The Choir Sees All

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One benefit of singing in our church choir is that we sit in the front of the church and get to watch the antics of the children in the pews during the service. Our congregation is pretty tolerant of noisy children in church. Parents of the most rambunctious children sit in the balcony so they don’t make too much of a ruckus.

The other Sunday our backyard neighbor was in the balcony with her two boys, ages 5 and 3. They are very active boys. Once, this summer we heard the mom in the backyard yell at the oldest one “Don’t you put that rope around your brother’s neck!” Neither boy would sit still in church, choosing to instead run around in the balcony and not listen to their mom. She tried her best to get them to sit quietly, but it was a losing battle, and she eventually left and went home before the sermon. 

What do you think about the Elf on the Shelf? Who were the naughtiest children in your neighborhood when you were growing up?