The sun is far enough to the south now that it shines directly through our kitchen sink window. It is so nice to get the warmth of the sun on these chillier days.

The only down side is that while I'm making dinner or some such, and because we STILL don't have curtains in our kitchen, said sun shines directly into my eyes making an otherwise enjoyable task somewhat frustrating.

Well, today I decided to pull out some old curtains from the bedroom of our old condo to see if they would work on the window. They were perfect. And I must say, the window looks a lot nicer and every task done at the window seems just a bit cheerier now.

Now, about the other two windows in the kitchen ...

Book Review: Kristin Lavransdatter

It's done. I finally finished the trilogy Kristin Lavransdatter. Here is the short synopsis to get you all interested in reading it: The story follows Kristin, a passionate, beautiful and pious young woman, who lives in medieval Norway. She falls in love with a reckless man, Erland, and falls into sin. The story follows her life and is as much a story of her soul as it is a painting of 1300's Scandanavian landscape.

Undset wrote it with such beauty, wisdom and insight. It far surpassed my expectations. In fact, I have all but given up on writing my own stories, as it appears the perfect story has already been written. I am afraid to even think about reading another book, because it is bound to disappoint.

Yes, Kristin Lavransdatter will be a tough act to follow. So, please. Do yourself a favor and read these books. They are absolutely wonderful. Little House on the Prairie has a replacement. (And now you KNOW I'm serious.)

And a HUGE thank you to Natalie Henningsgaard for recommending this treasure to me.

NOTE: Check out my new movie picks on the right hand side of this page. Majid Majidi!! Gotta see these movies!!!

20 kids.

That's right. I said 20.

And speaking of 20, that's the temp we're supposedly going to stoop to tonight. And thank God for mother-in-laws. Mine sacrificed her afternoon to help me dig up the rest of our carrots and potatoes.

Only, I spend 2.5 hours trying to get Ana to nap only to have her not nap and then I just had a cranky toddler on my hands. So by 3:30, I strapped her into the car seat and forced her to close her eyes by driving around for an hour. By the time I got back, poor Helen had dug and scrubbed a bushel of carrots and was getting ready to transport the two bushels of potatoes to our basement.

She did it all on her own.

And if it hadn't been for her, our potatoes and carrots would have been lost to frozen soil.

Three cheers for in-laws!

It's been a typical weekend round the shire.

Jenny and Russ brought their two little ones to the farm for some good times. And that is most certainly what we had! Friday night we noshed on some tasty chile while the kids got reacquainted with each other. Within an hour they were already fighting with each other, so you know, mission accomplished.

Saturday we spent the day visiting our neighbors cows, picking field corn and pretending they were corn babies (you know, like Laura Ingalls!), going for a long walk, examining pumpkins and being harassed by chickens.

Then, on Sunday morning we stuffed our faces with pancakes at the Pro-Life Breakfast in Marshall.

And the whole time I'm thinking, wouldn't it be great to have 20 kids? But then, Dan said no with a very somber look on his face. Ah yes, I remember now, one at a time Joy. I mean, what if they all did this at the same time?

Young at Heart

Grandpa and Grandma Wambeke, playing with Ana's ball.

The Year's Stock.

Well, the garden year is winding down. And, like last year, I am already thinking of things to do next year.

This year, we successfully grew: Peas, walking onions, yellow onions, green onions, sweet corn, beans, beets, parsnips, lots of different lettuces, kale, radishes, tons of differnt tomatoes, italian eggplant, turkish eggplant, melons, four kinds of potatoes, zucchinis, some different kinds of winter squashes and of course, pumpkins. And we got our strawberries and raspberries started.

Next year, I think the garden will remain status quo for the most part. But we are hoping to plant two kinds of apple trees: Harralson and Honey Crisp (or course! YUM!) And my newest idea is to raise a pig. You see, they are really cheap right now to buy a little feeder pig. Maybe thirty bucks. At that age they are about 2 months old and 40 pounds or so. You can fatten them up during the spring and into early fall on grass, root vegetables, table scraps and milk. Then, come November, you have a 200 pound fat pig ready to butcher. Not a bad idea, but I have to work out all the details still. Like, where his pasture will be, what we will build his house with and so forth.

Plus, there's the whole notion that we are going to be having a super busy spring anyway what with planting the garden and the trees, tapping and boiling maple syrup, birthing a child.

But there it is. And those of you who are thinking that we won't get any of these things done save for the child business (which is inevitable), you have my permission to say "I told you so." I'm hearing it a lot these days anyway. I'm getting used to it.

Ode to the Lowly Bug (and other Creepy-Crawlies). by Dan

Anyone who knows Joy well knows of her, well, terror, of all of God's creatures that come in small forms with multiple legs or tentacles. An ample illustration: it was only a couple weeks ago, when visiting the in-laws, that one of these fine specimens to the right (the "house centipede", otherwise known as Scutigera Coleoptrata) was found to be crawling up the fireplace stone, and Joy gave me that look that said "Please, Dan, do something." I may be brave, but I'm not stupid, so after sheathing my entire hand in 18 layers of paper towel, I went at the dirty task. Meanwhile, Joy hopped back and forth on top of the sofa making gagging noises (not, mind you, for special effect, but simply as an involuntary physiological response). Overheard while this whole debacle took place was the sound of Joy's dad walking into the room, sizing up the situation, and then asking Joy, "Is Dan slaying the dragon for you?"

And so, I thought, it would be fun to catalogue a few of the critters Joy has encountered in her two seasons of gardening. Each has provoked a response from Joy that, while varying in intensity, has always been humorous, and nearly always involved some sort of involuntary guttoral noise.


1) To begin with, there is the ubiquitous cucumber beetle. Kinda cute, but very annoying. Found anywhere where we have squash, pumpkins or zucchini - they chew through the leaves and, if we aren't on top of the situation, can kill the whole plot. After a failed experiment in 100% organic gardening where I attempted to vacuum them all up via the reverse setting on my leaf blower (after vacuuming every dang leaf in the entire garden, I had only captured about 3 bugs...) we have made our peace with the non-organic white powder you can buy in the stores. It kills them. We like that.

2) A very alarming find last year was this little lady, hiding in amongst the tomato plants. Argiope Aurantia, or the Yellow Garden Spider. If looks could kill, every mammal that ever dared set foot in our garden would be dead, with a look of dread forever frozen in place on their remaining corpse. Fortunately, these beauties are harmless (to us anyway. We've seen many a fly, however, spun into a quivering cocoon of terror by one of these no-nonsense ladies, to be set aside for a midnight snack). Needless to say, Joy still kept her distance.

3) Believe it or not, but the lowly earthworm, or Lumbricus Terrestris, is perhaps Joy's greatest nemesis of all. Incredibly useful for keeping soil healthy, they nonetheless fill Joy with an impending sense of doom, and recall to her memory an incident forever known as The Night of the Emergent Earthworms. Ask Joy for the "juicy" details (pun intended) on that one....

4) This year, we saw the arrival of the Squash Bug, or Anasa Tristis. Not even having the benefit of being pretty to look at, these fellas, if left unchecked, devour squash and pumpkin leaves even faster than their friends the cucumber beetles. At times, we had leaves that were gray, being completely covered by these munching maniacs. Fortunately, the Magic White Powder kills them, too.

5) I can't count the number of times that I have assured Joy that we do not have slugs in SW Minnesota. This year, I was proven wrong. They're small, and cute, and don't seem to have done any real damage. But they were unmistakably there.

6) Okay, this one was a false alarm. Attempting to discern why our squash vines were shriveling, Joy was absolutely convinced it was due to these lovely grubs, the Squash Vine Borer. Now, do understand that once they have taken hold, the only way to save your plant is by hand: to take a knife to the vine, cut it open, and extract the squirming larvae with your own fingers. Also understand that Joy was to have no part of this. So off Dan was sent to save the crop, knife in hand. After slitting open vine after vine, only to find nothing, I noticed instead the presence of some eggs of the aforementioned Squash Bugs. Out came the Magic White Powder. Case Closed.

7) Finally, this year a few of our pumpkins were found to have small holes burrowed into their rinds. In a couple cases, the telltale culprit was found wriggling away inside. This critter has yet to be firmly identified, but as of now we suspect the nefarious Melon Worm. Fortunately, we've only lost a few gourds to these varmints, so the damage has been contained.

The good news in all of this is that, we do live in Minnesota, where the winter freeze kills off all but the most hardy (read: small) of insects and critters. Imagine Joy's reaction instead if we were living in Borneo and stumbled across one of these critters in the garden....

Squash the squash!

I'm not sure why, but today and yesterday have been mad dashes filled with freezing or otherwise consuming food about to spoil.

Yesterday, we awoke to the shire blanketed in a thick frost. The temp was supposed to touch the freezing point providing the nice light frost that tasties up our carrots and parsnips still in the ground. But no, it hit a few degrees cooler, making it a hard freeze which froze about 70% of our winter squash. Those delicate and delicious gourds which were sitting unattended and naked under the night sky. So, I spent yesterday and a good part of today roasting and freezing them before they spoil.

Then, last night, after having cooked four cups of rice for our E-Team meeting (to go with Lila's awesome Lamb Stew), we promptly forgot it on the kitchen counter. Well, harvey darn.

Lucky for us, Ana and I were very much in the mood for Kai Pelo this morning, which took care of some of the rice. I believe the rest will go towards fried rice and perhaps rice porridge (which my dad declares is better than pizza!).

I will leave you with this picture of Ana with a mouthful of Kai Pelo.



And now I am going to roast my (hopefully) last batch of squash. All I can say is, it's a really good thing Ana loves squash as much as she does.

Double Sigh.

Last night Dan and I went to Lynd for a meeting that our representative put together on the power lines. We met some folks from the CapX2020 team who are wanting to put up the line, as well as a fellow from the Public Utilities Commission. We didn't learn a lot more than what we already know, but it was nice to meet these people and talk to them face to face about our concerns with the project. We will find out in a few months which of the two routes CapX2020 prefers to build their line on (our house being one of those two routes, of course).

The best part of the meeting with getting to meet the Public Utilities Commission manager who seemed like a straight talker. He didn't provide any spin and told it like it is, even when what it was wasn't very popular.

The worst part was learning that they probably won't be able to string the new lines with any old ones (like the one across the road from us). Ergo, if they choose our route, it likely would have to go through our grove. However, cutting down windbreaks like ours would mean they would likely pay us a tidy sum so we may be able to move our house to a new location on the farm site. Not that we want to do that at all! But, it might afford us that option.

It'll be a long road.

In other news, our little boy is already causing problems. Some of you may remember the raging case of sciatica that I had with Ana. And so it already begins. Enter the dreaded maternity belt. Ana has already taken to it and insists on wearing it herself. Isn't she stylish?

ITS A BOY!

We had our ultrasound today, and it is unmistakable. We are definately incubating a boy. How so sure? He was playing with himself.

Sigh.

Ana's First Bar Brawl.

Well, okay. Just a little header off a step onto the sidewalk. But it sounds way cooler the other way.

Buckeyes.

Today, Ana and I got the inspiration to make these tasty little cookies (or candies, I'm not sure which category they would be put in) called Buckeyes. Aptly named since they look like the Ohio state tree. We saw them on this blog and immediately thought of Daddy who has a fierce fondness for all things peanut butter and chocolate.

Anyhoo, they turned out deliciously. Here's a shot of Ana helping me dip the peanut buttery goodness into the chocolate. Look at that concentration. We're hoping Daddy loves them.




And do check out that link for the blog where I found the recipe. She has much better photos of the final product than I could ever take. And BONUS! She makes and sells her own block prints that are beautiful! Here's my favorite:

And DOUBLE BONUS! She's selling her stuff two for one this Thursday through Sunday. Danger. Here's her etsy shop so you too can get into some hot water: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5140209

Super Silly!

Oh it was a fun weekend round the shire!
My brother Aaron drove up on Friday to take on the duck opener. After many previous visits sans kill, he finally bagged a few birds. Three geese and two ducks. We are so proud. And bonus, the cats got to nosh on the innards. A good time was had by all.

Besides getting to visit with him, we also had friends over and enjoyed the beautiful weather. Both sunny and rainy. There's nothing like the prairie in the fall.

Today though, Ana and I felt a little lonely. Dan had left early this morning for Minneapolis, and Aaron went home to Woodbury at noon. So, we decided to make a trip to Camden State Park where Ana played on the slides, splashed in the water, rustled red and gold maple leaves, and hunted for sticks. We made an afternoon of it by stopping off at McDonalds for dinner where Ana ate her entire Happy Meal (!) and stared at other kids.

This one's for Dan, who, before Ana was even born, said: I can't wait until she's in the pigtail stage. Ana climbing the playset at Camden, with that super silly grin again:

Harvest

Combines, semi-trailers, big-ol tractors. Ana can say all these words now as the fields surrounding out little house on the prairie are being harvested. It's fun to hear all the commotion during the day (and sometimes into the night). It makes me feel like we actually live on a farm, fancy that.

This morning, Ana and I put on our warmest sweatshirts and romped around the newly cut fields. Here she is with Stew, the two of them examining what was left of Terry's soybeans.



In other news, our very first harvest of sunflowers are coming in. We've pulled a few heads to dry inside the house just in case the birds were to get them before we do. Here's one that is actually mostly dry, right next to my computer.



Tomorrow, more pumpkin sales! Wish us luck!

PS. Did anyone else enjoy the debate last night? I thought both candidates did a very good job. Although, I still am favor to one over the other.

Tater tots anyone?

This is one of those posts that was meant for yesterday. Alas, yesterday was a flurry of emergencies from morning until late late at night. But everything went well! Partly due to the prayers of St. Therese of Lisieux, whose prayers I asked for.

It was her feast day yesterday. I am certain there are people out there wondering why they are called feast days. Back in the early centuries of the Church, when Christianity was illegal in the western world, Christians would gather in the catacombs (or tombs) of saints and celebrate their lives on earth and in heaven with a grand feast. This is a tradition that we continue on today!

St. Therese, a girl who lived and died in the early 20th century, is my favorite saint, for the simple fact that she is like me. Not that I'm a saint, but during her life, she lamented that she couldn't be a missionary and do grand things for God. Somewhere down the line though, she realized that that wasn't going to happen, and she began to see every small thing that she encountered during her day to be a chance to do it for God with as much love and zeal as a missionary would. In this way, her heart became one with Christ's, and very shortly after her death, she was declared a Saint and then a Doctor of the Church, of which there are only 33.

For our feast, we're going to have something I rarely make but Dan absolutely loves: Tater tot hot dish.

Please hold the chortles. I will be sneaking in some nutrition, where, I don't know yet. St. Therese, pray for me.