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This weather was forecast so I pushed to get the remainder of the raised beds and the asparagus patch weeded yesterday. (And why was it that I bothered to do that?)
You can see the raised beds in the distance over the snow-covered table on the deck. Barely.
This lovely batch of Poor Man's Fertilizer still coming down is supposed to turn to rain later today. Rain and melting would be fine. Just so it all doesn't freeze.
The past 24 hours on this ol' homestead have not been a piece of cake. Or even a crumb of a cookie.
There is only a very, very low crawl space underneath what was the original part of our house (it was a dumpy cabin really) when we bought it. Late yesterday afternoon, our dear daughter heard what sounded like a ticking or dripping coming from the area of the floor in our bedroom.
Well, turns out a joint fitting of one of our water pipes had loosened and was dripping. In the crawl space. Upon close inspection, we realized it had been leaking for quite a while. There was a small wading pool on top of the white plastic we'd used to cover the dirt floor in an effort to keep mold from forming in the crawl space. (Has worked well, too.)
We turned off the water, cut the pipe (had to take out a "T", too) and put a temporary cap on it. And crossed our fingers that it would hold. Then we turned the water back on and filled pots for washing, half gallon jars of drinking and cooking water, buckets for flushing the toilet, etc.
This morning began with a trip to the hardware store for supplies possibly needed.
Dear daughter went slithering into the crawl space with rags, turkey baster and a bucket to make a dry place for her dad to work after he spent some time at his work bench doing as much preliminary work as he could.
All of the following pictures are of poor quality, but it was the best I could get.
This is our daughter removing the water that had accumulated on top of the plastic.
Then she had to make her way back close enough to me at the opening to take the bucket and dump it. Back and forth we went.
That's me reaching into the opening to the crawl space to retrieve a bucket to take outside to dump.
Once that was done, and Papa Pea had girded his loins, in he crawled to do the repairs.
Then daughter went in to hand him things and lend moral support. What a sweetie she was. I stayed on the outside so I could be the go-fer for any additional supplies they needed.
My poor husband has always had trouble working over his head while on his back so this was no picnic for him. Fortunately, today he didn't get the bad headache and dizziness this position usually causes him. A much appreciated turn of events from the usual.
Our daughter cancelled a work day of her own to stay and help us through this unpleasant repair. I told her she should have known there would be days like this in her future when her dad had her helping lay block for a septic tank when she was nine years old. Truth to tell, she's always been right there to help with lots of yucky jobs that need to be done. I think we'll keep her.
A relief, needless to say, to have our water system back up and running. Flowing. And not leaking.
Just another quiet, fun-filled 24 hours on the homestead. Gak.
Today was my first day (well, half day) of the season working out in the garden. Wanted to uncover the garlic and rhubarb and free the chives from their debris, and clean up the asparagus bed. I got a good start on the asparagus bed, but that was it since I didn't get out there until afternoon after a morning of wood work.
This was the asparagus bed when I started. All the old, dead stalks and ferns needed to come off.
I managed to get everything in one big garden cart load. Now I need to take out all the weeds that have already started to grow, till between the rows and add some compost over the mounds where the asparagus spears will emerge.
We've had a bald eagle hanging around our place for about a week now. I don't know why, but he/she hasn't bothered any of our poultry . . . yet anyway. Don't know what we'll do if that happens. The eagle seems mainly interested in a pile of old mulch I have at the end of the garden. Flying down and landing on the pile, he/she gathers as much as possible in his/her talons and flies off with it. It's no doubt for building a new nest in the area somewhere. And I'm losing a lot of mulch!
Here I caught him/her high up in a tree breaking off branches and flying off with them. The branches, presumably, are for the nest building also.
Sadness and woe, it looks as though we may have lost four or five of our newest fruit trees. We've never had this happen before, but even though we had screening wrapped around the bottom of the trunks, we think it was mice or voles that stood on top of the snow and completely girdled the trees. They do have buds on them, but girdling of this extent usually means the tree is done for.
A couple of days ago, Papa Pea spotted what he at first thought was an immature grouse in our chicken yard. On closer inspection it seems to be a quail. (Are you missing any of yours, Susan?) He's been peacefully existing (and eating) with the rest of our poultry, moves like the Energizer Bunny and is extremely hard to capture in a picture. Where did he come from? Good question!
With only five days left in the month, there's no way we're going to have all our year's wood cut, split and under cover. Not by a long shot.
This pile already cut but not split is about twice as big as what you see.
Our weather has not been cooperative for our wood working month. Lots of rain (and snow) which makes working on the wood not only a bit dangerous, but very messy. There's still standing water that has run in a stream under the pile of logs. We've done the best we could, so we'll have to settle for getting it done when we can.
We've had two days in the 60s now so we're thinking winter is actually over. If we don't get any more rain, I'll be back in the garden tomorrow and might even get my handy-dandy tiller out to work up some of the raised beds!
I'm not running on all four cylinders today. Feel a bit hung over . . . not from too much chocolate (or too much wine) yesterday. Just the need to get out and going to an early morning meeting . . . and the memory of a really nice get together of friends and family for our Easter dinner accompanied with great conversation yesterday. Who knew there were so many funny stories of one-room school houses and leaky air mattresses.
Papa Pea taught in a two-room school house (next small step up from a one-room) for five years. Our daughter was in his class along with her best friend which spelled nothing but trouble for their teacher/dad. Our good friend J spent all of her grade school in a one-room school over-populated with boys and no girls near her age.
Papa Pea and I recalled a night on one of our early camping trips with torrential rain flowing under our tent and his air mattress refusing to stay inflated. In one of her first apartments, our friend A had nothing to sleep on but a leaky air mattress which she tried over and over to patch with packing tape and one night, in desperation, a wad of gum.
Dear daughter did the bulk of the food preparation yesterday with a little help from me. Our friend A brought a wonderful roasted broccoli dish and J provided dessert of a cheesecake with fresh raspberries. We figured each of our little slices of the luscious cheesecake held approximately 650 calories.
But I ramble. On to the drawing for the table runner.
I numbered your names as they came in, put the numbers 1 - 15 on slips of paper and had this Easter bunny sitting in his basket draw a number. The winner is:
Number 10 which corresponds with the comment from ELIZABETH.
So if you, Elizabeth, will send me your mailing address via my Contact button on my right hand side bar, I'll get the runner off to you asap.
Thanks to all of you who entered and said such nice things about this quilted piece. Hope you all had a lovely Easter.
Once upon a time, I wanted a new spring table runner for the top of our coffee table in the living room in front of the couch.
I made this one but have never once used it. Why? Dunno, even though I've kept trying it in different places, it just doesn't float my boat.
It's not large; 33-1/2" long from point to point and 11-1/2" wide. It was machine pieced and hand quilted. The backing is muslin. I made it way back in 2005 so you can understand if I haven't used it by now, it really deserves to go to someone else.
Here I got a better picture that shows the truer colors of the runner than in the two previous pictures.
Anyone interested in entering the drawing for it? If so, let me know in the comment section of this post.
I'll collect names until I shut down my computer on Sunday night, April 21st, around 9 p.m. and then announce the name drawn on Monday morning and mail it off to the winner next time I make a trip to the post office.
If you're interested, don't by shy. Even those of you who may be readers but don't usually comment are welcome to join in.
Hello? Anybody out there??
Did the trauma I suffered over this failed lemon pie matter naught to you? Geesh, I'm amazed you asked for the recipe after my tale of woe in serving it.
Okay, it was delicious. And I have to admit that the pieces I cut and served today (I told you we'd eat it all) did come out of the pan without looking as though they'd been run over by our tractor.
So if you insist, here is the recipe. Even though the "shortbread" crust was quite tasty, I'm sure the lemon filling would lend itself to a graham cracker crust very well. And that would (should) come out of the pie pan with ease while still remaining attached to the filling.
The recipe is labeled Lemon Sour Pie, but that's a misnomer since there's nothing sour about the lovely, smooth, lemony flavor. Here goes:
Lemon Sour Pie
For the impossibly recalcitrant crust, combine 1 cup flour and 1/4 cup sugar. Melt 1/2 cup butter and pour over dry mixture. Combine thoroughly with a spoon, dump into a 9" or 10" pie plate. Using the back of the spoon, press mixture evenly on bottom of plate and up the sides. (I ended up using my hands to finish this process.)
Place in a 350 degree oven and bake for 10 minutes. Cool the crust.
For the filling, in a saucepan combine 1-1/4 cups sugar, 1/3 cup cornstarch and 1/4 teaspoon salt.
Beat 1-3/4 cups water with 4 egg yolks. Add to sugar mixture and blend.
Stir constantly (does anyone actually do this?) over medium heat until thick and boiling. Boil 1 minute.
Remove from heat, add 1 tablespoon butter, 2 teaspoons finely grated lemon peel (I used all the grated peel from one lemon), and 1/4 cup lemon juice. Stir until butter is melted, then stir in 1/2 cup dairy sour cream, blending until smooth.
Pour into crust and chill 2 to 3 hours before serving.
In ending this post, I say best of luck to you if you choose to attempt this pie with the shortbread-like crust.
Actually, in the comments section of the original pie post, I think Anonymous - A Reader in Philly had a really good idea. She suggested baking the recipe in a square pan lined with a long piece of buttered parchment paper, cooling it and lifting the dessert out by the ends of the parchment paper and cutting it into squares. I thought of baking it in a square pan and then scooping it out as one would do with a pudding . . . and who would care if the bottom crust came out crumbled.
Where there's a will, there's a way, eh? Go for it.
