To Give Or Not To Give

I'm going to a baby shower this coming Sunday. In with the invitation was a short list of suggested items needed and/or wanted by the new mama. One item was a sweater.

Perfect! My fingers have been itching to knit for a while now so I jumped on this idea immediately. I knew the pattern I would use, and I had yarn for it. Well, turns out the yarn wasn't exactly the same as that called for, but I thought it would work.

The sweater is nearly finished, but I'm just not sure if I'll wrap it up as my gift for the shower . . . or not. You see, the measurements of the sweater are a little bigger than the pattern indicated (did I mention my yarn wasn't exactly the same as that called for?). Truth to tell, it looks like it might fit a linebacker for the Green Bay Packers. Okay, it's not THAT big and the little Bundle of Joy could probably wear it next winter, but it is gonna look SO BIG for her right now.

I could give her these two little hats I have made up. And maybe a receiving blanket I could put together with some soft flannel I have.

When Bundle of Joy was born two weeks ago, I was honored to be invited to the hospital to meet her when she was just hours old. At that time I took the baby quilt I had made for her. (Even that looked big enough to cover about eight babies her size!)

But I know newborns grow faster than weeds . . . so maybe she would grow into the sweater before she's sixteen.

Back to my needles and yarn. I'll stop trying to make a decision right now and wait to see what it looks like when I'm all done.

HOPE YOU ALL HAVE A JOYOUS NEW YEAR'S EVE . . . BE SAFE!

P.S. I'm having trouble with my e-mail so if you've sent me a message and haven't heard back from me, don't think I'm ignoring you. I'm just having trouble accessing messages and sending new ones out. My computer tech (daughter) is coming later today to troubleshoot.

We're Gonna Be Cookin'

Okay, troops, we're gonna be posting some recipes frequently here now. Because I'm so totally over-done on sweets (double YU-uck!) and need some REAL food. And because it's the part of the year when I'm inside more than outside and actually have time to cook. (But, wait . . . cooking? Quilting? Cooking? Quilting? Hmmm, should I rethink what I just said?)

Oh, let's just get on with it.

I made a pot of yummy soup this morning. Great Green Soup with Vegetables is the name. It's a hearty soup with lots of eye appeal and flavor. Here are the ingredients:

Great Green Soup with Vegetables

1 cup green split peas
2 tablespoons butter
1 medium chopped onion
4 ribs chopped celery
3 sliced carrots
1 medium cubed potato

1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon dried chives
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon dried parsley
1 bay leaf

3 cups broth or water

Chunks of meat (optional)

Wash the split peas, put into a small bowl and cover with boiling water. Let soak for one hour. Drain, discarding the water.

In a soup pot, saute the onion in the butter for a few minutes. Add the celery, carrots and potato. (The potato looks like chunks of apple, doesn't it?) Continue sauteing until veggies are lightly browned.

Add the drained peas and seasonings; mix well. Add the broth, cover the pan and bring soup to a boil.

Lower heat and simmer about one hour, testing to see that the peas are soft. Stir occasionally during simmering and add more broth or water if soup becomes thicker than you want. When peas are done, check the seasonings, and add more if you wish. Remove the bay leaf and serve.

Makes about 6 cups.

NOTES: Because I have our own organically grown potatoes to use, I prefer not to peel the potato . . . adds color and a little texture.

For the broth, I use my homemade broth . . . either chicken or turkey or beef . . . whatever I have on hand. I almost always have to add more salt because my broth isn't as salty as the commercial kind.

I think I've mentioned before that I'm a carbohydrate type and Roy is a protein type. That means, especially in the winter time, he's always looking for more M-E-A-T than I have a hankering for. So to keep him happy, I sliced up some pre-cooked pork sausage and added it to this batch of soup. The soup truly doesn't need it for flavor, but I have to make sure the main snow shoveling person has plenty of energy these days. (The package of sausage is pictured above with the herbs and seasonings.) It's Organic Prairie Italian Pork Sausage (fully cooked), and I do admit it's delicious.

Chunks of cooked chicken or ham are good in it, too.

This soup could be turned into a thick, creamy soup (minus the meat) by putting it in the blender after cooking. (Just be sure to remove the bay leaf first!) But I think I prefer it with the interesting texture of the veggies and split peas in the broth.

Learning To Live With The Seasons

Recently I came across the following that I had written a couple of years ago in the month of August:

A Thought To Remember in December

It is August 8th, 85° and humid. It's 4:30 in the afternoon, I'm cranky, hot, bug-bitten and totally exhausted from working outside on a million different projects since early this morning . . . AND there are still a couple hours to work before dinner (which will be smoothies 'cause I don't have time or energy for anything else). Then we have to go back outside after dinner to finish a time-sensitive project --- grass seeding, this time.

So in December, savor 4:30 in the afternoon (dark yet?), savor the day spent indoors, savor the good dinner, savor the long evening ahead spent reading, quilting, knitting, or relaxing.

HOORAY FOR WINTER!!

Christmas On Swamp River Ridge

When we heard from our daughter yesterday shortly before noon, she reported that Chainsaw Tommy had plowed halfway out their 4-mile long winter driveway to pleasantly find that the loggers who are working off the same road had come in and plowed the two miles in to their site. So between him and the loggers, the four miles was plowed and open.

The fourteen miles of the county road from the main road to their "driveway" had not been plowed yesterday but we decided to go for it anyway.

And wouldn't ya know it, before we left it started snowing here harder than we had seen it during the storm. Oh well, we wanted to have Christmas and Chicken Mama had been holding Christmas dinner for a day already. We had plenty of emergency gear in our truck and the temperature was staying in the mild 20s. So off we went.

There was one set of tire tracks which made our journey easier on the unplowed county road. Roy had the truck in 4-wheel high and we were able to go along steadily with no trouble.

This was taken on daughter and son-in-law's winter driveway. The scenery all the way was gorgeous. Everything was heavily coated with heavy, pristine white snow.

The view of their house upon our arrival. The snow stopped just about then, but yes indeed, they do have an accumulation of snow! Close to two feet of the stuff.

What a pretty tree they had. Cut from their woods and decorated beautifully.

We had a wonderful Christmas celebration. Lots of nice gifts . . . many of them homemade which are the very best!

Chicken Mama has been designing cabinets for her kitchen and was absolutely thrilled with this one for storing plates that Chainsaw Tommy surprised her with.

Daughter made a batch of root beer for Christmas and here I am nonchalantly pouring out a glassful and slopping foam (whadda head!) all over the counter.

Son-in-law has been doing so much snow removal and shoveling in the past couple of days that by 8 p.m. he was nodding off in a comfy chair. We took that as our signal to load up and head off for home. It was a bright, moonlit night and the scenery was almost more awesome than in the daylight.

When we got to the county road, it had been plowed (hooray!) so it was an easy fourteen miles to the main road. I thought for sure we were going to see a moose because there were tracks all over the road. It looked as if 50 or so of them had been traveling to a moose convention somewhere in the woods. But the trip produced no wildlife . . . and only three vehicles in the whole forty miles. Two regular cars and one police car.

It may have been a day late, but it was truly a lovely Christmas!

It's Still Christmas For Us

Most of you celebrated Christmas yesterday but we're having ours today. Let's see if I can explain this convoluted reshuffling of days.

Christmas Eve night we made the decision to postpone our Christmas Day at our daughter and son-in-law's until today, the 26th. They live an hour's drive from us, waaaay back in uncharted territory. (Well, okay, it is charted, but very, very remote.) On Christmas Eve, the county pulled the snowplows off the roads at about 7 p.m. Snow conditions were bad with more snow forecast for Christmas Day. So the four of us decided to give the storm an extra day to blow itself out before trying to make it to their house.

We didn't get much snow yesterday, because it rained (yes, RAINED) for a few hours which pummeled our snow here into about 4" of slush. What a mess! Because Swamp River Ridge (our daughter and son-in-law's homestead) normally has colder temperatures than we do, they did get snow all day and as of last night, were up to their . . . well, they had a lot. (Close to a foot and a half, as far as they could tell.)

By plowing a couple of times during the day, they were able to keep their 4-mile long winter driveway open, but this morning we're waiting to hear if the 14-miles of county road from the main road to their spur road has been plowed. That could be our stumbling block.

We had rain all night. If they had snow, we might not be able to make it. Our huge county is well known for having several micro-climates and this divergence of temperature and weather is not unusual.

We've loaded up the truck and are hoping the plows have been out so we can make it. Our temperature is still warm (34° with rain) so it's not as if we have to worry about dangerously cold conditions. Now we're just waiting to hear from our daughter to decide whether or not to head out. Wish us a little bit of Christmas luck!

Blizzard Report

The forecasters said we would get several inches of snow this morning and then a lull before the heaviest snow started up again in late afternoon.

The snow that fell this morning was super wet and heavy. Matter of fact, our temperature has been hanging right around 31° and I've been afraid it would start to rain. THAT we don't need! I don't think we're getting an accurate measurement of just how many inches have fallen so far because it's so wet it's compacting as soon as it hits.

I went out to shovel off the deck this morning and could hardly stay on my feet because the surface was so slippery. Roy moved vehicles around in preparation for plowing at some point, and I saw him spinning his wheels more than once. We haven't ventured out to the main road so I don't know what conditions there are.

The snow did stop at about 2 p.m. and the lull is . . . still lulling now at 3:45. The snow that has fallen is indeed beautiful but it's unfortunate this particular storm had to arrive right over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Several churches here have already cancelled their services for this evening, and I can't imagine that lots of folks aren't having difficulties traveling.

It's ten minutes to 4 as I write this and it's dark enough to be difficult to see out the window over my desk. It was about the same amount of light at 8 this morning. As my better half said then, we're just past the shortest day of the year, and it's winter time in the north land. So what else should we expect?

Ooops, big, fat, white flakes have just now started coming down out there. Is this the start of the heaviest snow of the storm? I'll keep you updated.

Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas Eve!