zero tricks

Tonight we had zero tricks and zero treats. Granted, I was completely prepared to hand out spoonfulls of my beef stroganoff dinner. You know, for the children! You come to the door expecting a snickers or hershey's bar, and instead this crazy lady hauls over her crock pot and beckons wildly with a spoon....."oh, just have a taste! It's no-peek beef stroganoff!" From a recipe so good that it has been immortalized in the Lally Family Cookbooklet, how could any child turn it down?

They could turn it down if it was served over whole wheat egg noodles, that's for sure. I always buy the same yolk-less egg noodles when making the dish, but the grocery store was out of them and I made do with a healthier alternative. Healthier, obviously, because you don't want to eat any of them. I hereby warn everyone not to attempt to substitute for proper egg noodles. Don't even try it. You will end up sliding the noodles onto a plate for the turkeys and making yourself a piece of toast to dip onto the stroganoff. If you don't have turkeys, I am not entirely sure what you will do but you certainly don't want to eat the noodles.

Yesterday was Halloween celebrated Valve-style. In the afternoon there was a kid's party and I did my part as a pirate. Luckily Julian was my pirate companion for part of the afternoon so I blended in. His bandanna was particularly festive. There were bumblebees, lions, dinosaurs, princesses, and engineers (the Team Fortress variety, not the rocket-science kind) just to name a few. There was even a unicorn who ALSO had a set of wings.

I did construct one costume contribution in the form of a grape, while Maya and her mother napped like cats next to the heater on my sewing room floor.

Maya is a little pinot noir today.

houseTASTIC

Congratulations to my sister and family on getting the keys to their FIRST HOUSE!


Now is the time where we DANCE.


(And if you can't use all caps now, really, now, when can you?)

fun filled weekend

Harry supervises the cooking

We were busy bees this weekend. The lasagna has been taken to new heights with a chicken/veal blend in the sauce. So luxurious and tasty. We made two pans on Thursday night and then had friends over for a lasagna feast on Friday. Also in attendance was a newly-minted three year old who provided us all with tasty birthday cake. Excellent!

Charlie helped me out with the coop today and we got the floor joists in. Now I get to treat them and lay the plywood floor. It's supposed to rain a bit tomorrow, but with some luck I'll be able to work around it. I've learned that 16 foot lumber is impossible to buy in perfectly straight boards. We ended up using several clamps, some ratchet ties from Charlie's car, and a fair amount of muscle to get everything lined up and screwed down. Everything got squared away (literally) in the end, thank goodness.


In other images from the weekend:

the fog in the backyard was stunning on Saturday morning

we have entered the "ironic" stage of infertility. I felt like a furtive college student picking these up at the pharmacy. Oh my goodness, the pharmacist knows I'm having sex!

thursday

Pictures from the past few days......

Charlie is the master entertainer. The downside: being stabbed in the face with straws by a joyous boy.

Gladys assuming her post. When I'm working on the porch, she supervises the lumber pile

The reason that I want to have children: moments like this

I made oatmeal for lunch. Can you guess which one is mine, and which are poultry-bound? Everyone here is well fed.

Today I got the foundation laid out for the aviary. The photo appears crooked but be assured that I was out there with level-in-hand. Tomorrow I'll be pounding rebar through the canted footings and cementing everything together with construction adhesive. Then the actual floor gets built. Exciting! It is rather a pain that the ground slants so much, but I think it's easier to build a foundation on solid dirt that's been compacted over the years than trying to level out the plot and then deal with fluffy ground.

aviary, day 1

is our new house ready yet?

Sitting in the store, it didn't look like a lot of lumber. Sitting on the front porch, it still really doesn't look like all that much. But loading it into two rolling carts, then loading it into a rented gigantic home depot truck, then unloading it onto the front porch: there is a lot of lumber. Not visible are the 8 sheets of plywood that are around the other side of the porch. They were out of the 4-inch T-1-11 plywood siding that I wanted, so there are still four more sheets to buy. Plus all of the 1/2" hardware mesh for the bottom two feet of the walls, and the bigger livestock mesh for the rest of the walls. Plus some more incidentals I'm sure.

trust me, that is a lot of wood.

Charlie tried to give me perspective by reminding me that I'm pretty much building a one car garage. Perhaps after this I'll be able to build our garage someday instead of hiring a contractor. Then again, after this I may just want to sit in a lawn chair with a glass of bourbon and *watch* a contractor build the garage.


We got all of the wood home and Charlie went off to work. I got my work area ready and will start tomorrow. Today was an unusual sunny fall day and I took advantage of that to set up my foul-weather work station. The front porch will be best, so I rigged up a tarp that I'll pull up whenever I'm working under it. For now it's got one end tethered down to provide easier rain run-off. My primary and spare drill batteries are charged, and I have all of my various boxes of screws and nails for toenailing, and other nails for regular use. Now I just need steroids.

must enter hot tub tonight.

Since it was nice, I tried to get the other side of the house cleaned up a bit. Just need to borrow a pressure washer to clean off the patio and it will be all set.

Gladys beams up to the mother ship

raking frenzy

I spent six hours working in the yard today. It wasn't raining, so I had to get out there and get however much done that I could. I managed to tidy up the front and one side of the house. If you have ever lived in the northeast you know what I mean when I refer to "heart-attack snow." It's the wet kind, so sloppy and heavy that you go out to shovel your driveway and it pretty much kills you. Well, the pacific northwest has taught me about heart-attack leaves. I had to rake the entire yard and tow away canvas tarp after tarp full of leaden leaves. Then there were all of the millions of tiny sticks and twigs and bits from the windstorm.

looking out from the front porch to the right

and to the center (with the tiny chicken A-frame)

and over to the left

But then I got to play with my toy. Oh, how I love my leaf blower. The leaves are too heavy to blow around, so I use it more to tidy up in the end. And to try to whip all of the little maple helicopters out of the gravel and off into the woods. I must have spent an hour pottering around with that thing. And when I was done the driveway was pristine. The propane delivery man made me jump out of my skin because he appeared behind me when I happened to be blowing next to the propane tank. He laughed and laughed.

you can actually see the driveway!

The porch is finally cleared off again, ready to receive my influx of aviary lumber. Tomorrow morning we're off to the store to buy, among many other things, twenty-eight 2x4x10' s. And 13 plywood sheets of different types. I made out my shopping list tonight for the lumber and some incidentals, stuff that I can't possibly carry by myself. The rest (baling wire, hardware cloth, trim and hardware and roofing materials) I can pick up on my own. But tomorrow Charlie will help me get the really ungainly stuff home. Then I have to build the thing!

lasagna

Charlie got a new Italian cookbook the other day, and has been reading it and picking out things to make. Last night we decided on lasagna. He's been perfecting a bolognese sauce over the past few months, and this cookbook had a completely different technique than he had been using. Italian sauce without garlic or basil? Bizarre! It worked marvelously though. Four hours of gentle simmering (courtesy of a new diffuser that worked like a charm) and the taste went through several different stages.

I made the noodles, following what sounded like insanely overcomplicated directions. Simple flour-and-egg pasta dough, rolled out to the ultimate thin setting. So sheer that they looked like women's stockings. The entire counter was covered with dishtowels, because each piece had to be laid out and not touch anything else or else it stuck like glue. Once they were all rolled out, I trimmed them to pan-length and dropped five noodles at a time into boiling water. After 20 seconds, they were scooped out and put into a bowl of cold water. Then over to the kitchen sink, and rinsing each noodle under cold running water to get the starch off. For being so thin they were surprisingly sturdy and I really could scrub them "like delicate laundry" as the directions said. Then each noodle was laid out flat again on a dry towel and patted dry on both sides.

While Ido was helping me out with the noodle hoopla, Charlie made bechamel. Then the two guys assembled the seven layer lasagne while I got to play with baby Maya. Even after all of those layers, the final product was maybe three inches high. So delicate! So incredibly tasty. I kept trying to deny it, but it really was worth the five hours it took to prepare it.

fall storm season

The high wind warnings for yesterday resulted in a bit more than my anticipated raking. I pottered around the house in the afternoon, watching the trees bend and whip in the wind. The power went out around 4pm. I entertained myself by crocheting by the back kitchen windows until the sun set, then lit my many candles and sat by the fire until Charlie came home at 9. He discovered that the loud crack I had heard earlier was a big tree falling across our driveway.

Seasoned storm veterans that we are, we had a gourmet meal of pan-fried tilapia and wild rice, a bottle of wine, and played cribbage. Power outages don't phase us! We thought about hooking up the generator (mostly to keep the fridge going) but figured that the power would be on by morning. It wasn't. We spent the morning in the yard with Charlie on axe and me on chainsaw. The tree wasn't that much trouble, but during life it had been host to a robust and wiry wisteria vine. For every tree branch there were five thick vines wrapped around it. It took a lot of hacking to get it all broken up and dragged off to the side.

The power was back on by 4pm today and we soaked away some of the aches in the hot tub. I've been working on getting a proper emergency bin ready that could keep us going for a week or two. I could post pages about all of the items you should have on hand. But for now here is my list of extra pleasantries that will keep you happy during a power outage:

1. Think about every movie you've seen about the British conquering foreign lands. They could be in the middle of the bush but be living in elaborate linen tents and eating off of china. You don't need that. What you need is hot water. Always have a way to heat up water. We fortunately have a gas stove powered by our huge propane tank. You just have to light it with a match. If you have an electric stove, invest in a modest camping stove. Coleman makes great two- burner ones that are ample enough for cooking and boiling large pots of water. A hot washcloth in the morning = ecstasy.

2. A french press. It's mid morning, you're soaked to the bone and cold after clearing brush from the yard. What makes you feel better? A lovely cup of fresh coffee. Mmmmm. Or have some tea, if you fancy that.

3. Hurricane lamps. Only people in movies carry candelabras to light their way. Candles are atmospheric but don't put out a useful amount of light unless you have lots of them. Buy one or two simple lamps that burn oil and have a glass chimney. This way you can carry it around with you one-handed.

4. An old-fashioned phone that plugs into the wall. In a power outage, cordless phones don't work. Pick up a $10 phone at radio shack and stash it in a drawer. The power going out doesn't necessarily mean that the phone lines go down, so it's nice to have a land line available.

Someday I'll include my other lists, which involve such tantalizing topics as "how to stock your pantry for the storm season" and "could you find a flashlight in your house in the dark?" And there's always the favorite "wear a hat to bed when it's under 50 degrees in your house; there is a reason people used to wear nightcaps in the days before central heating."

fall

I woke up yesterday morning to see that about half of the leaves in the front yard had fallen all at once. Must have been a windy night, and it meant that I had to get out there and do some serious raking. I learned last year that if I don't keep up with the leaves our entire property becomes covered in an impenetrable slime of heavy thick maple leaves. Fall here means rain. We have lots of trees, and most of them are broadleaf maples. Beautiful shady trees in the summer, enormously tall, but their leaves are oh so very broad. Each tree has about a bajillion of them and when they fall they are like dragon scales.

It hadn't yet started raining, so I was able to get out there with my rake and my leaf-dragging tarp and get most of the front yard uncovered. Thursday night there's supposed to be a wind storm, and that should send the remaining leaves plummeting. I see more raking in Friday's future!


We also had yard visitors. Two adolescent deer meandering from back to front yard. I managed to take a picture of one of the ladies.


I worked all day on Monday on those coop plans, sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee and listening to classical music. The turkeys were antsy so I decided to let them have the run of the kitchen. It took them a while to get the hang of wood floors. They tried to keep playing their flapping games and their legs would fly out from under them and they'd plop onto the floor. Today or tomorrow I'm going to try to move them outside to the coop. It's chilly out, but with a heat lamp in one corner they should be ok. I will miss their cacophony in the kitchen, but will not miss their turkey smell. Oi.

orange box: shipped!

The reason Charlie was able to help me clear some land? The orange box has finally shipped and he has some free time again. Yay! There was a fun ceremony last Tuesday night at midnight when they pushed the button and the games went live, and then on Thursday there was a rip-roaring party where much fun was had. And bowling.

One more of the movies for Charlie's game has been released and it's awfully funny. Unfortunately they were forced to bleep out one of the great lines. Curses, you ESRB party poopers!

new aviary

the aviary plot, before

Charlie says he knew it was necessary after our first batch of chickens got killed. I held out through a few more brutal slayings, but now have come to realize that if we are to have poultry it can't be free range. And since we have two adolescent turkeys in the kitchen who are almost big enough to live outside, it has to be built soon.

Today was a lovely sunny day and Charlie helped me clear the plot of land for the new aviary. I wanted to be able to see the chickens from the house, and have them be close enough that they didn't feel isolated out in the woods. We picked a spot right next to the driveway. Once it's built, you'll be able to see the chickens from the living room, dining room, and our bedroom windows. And the front porch, of course. The location seems to get some nice sun, and there are enough trees on three sides to provide a bit of a wind- and rain-break.

bunyan action

There were only three major botanical obstacles: a big but scraggly pine tree, a scrawny rhododendron, and a big bushy azalea. We've got so many of those things all around the yard that I wasn't too pained about digging them up. Charlie channeled his inner paul bunyan and eschewed the chainsaw in favor of the axe. He felled the big pine tree and then we both stripped the branches off and dragged everything over behind the shed and into the ravine ("nature's compost bin").

the aviary plot, mostly cleared

Then we just had to rip up a bunch of brambles and one gigantic fern and it was cleared. Gladys hung out with us the entire time. At one point she decided to dig a hole next to where Charlie had laid the axe and have a furious dust bath.

dirt flies!

what are you looking at? I'm just sitting here.

Now that Charlie has finished the preliminary design sketch, I have to figure out how to build the thing. The ground isn't perfectly level, so if any of you out there have experience with pouring concrete to set posts, I would love help with how to build the foundation frame. Hopefully I'll be done within a month, before we leave for Australia.

childhood promise to self: broken

Sarah, age 8:

"When I am a grownup I will NEVER make anyone ever take Robitussin. Never ever! That stuff is so disgusting."

Sarah, age 34:

*cough cough*
*cough cough cough cough cough*

While leaning over the kitchen sink, downing a shot of syrupy goodness...
"Aw, hell. Mom was right all along"

Crafty Painting

crafting is very stuff-intensive, obviously

There is a particular color that shows up a lot in sewing and craft rooms. If you search on Flickr for craft room, you'll see the recurrence of the theme. The tones range from robin's egg to turquoise to tiffany's blue. There is something about the color. It makes anything that you hold up against it look fantastic. Piles of fabric look positively delicious. I've longed for the color for ages.

what a change!

I've also coveted Maggi's metal shelves. Since she was doing a re-organization of her own craft space, she passed them on to me. Yay! There had been two gallons of blue paint sitting under my sewing desk for months and it was their time to shine. First everything got yanked out of the room. I was quite honestly stunned at the sheer amount of crap that I have for making things. Dutifully I went through everything and managed to get two trunks full of stuff to take to the goodwill. With some tricky packing I managed to get what remained organized and put into boxes and bins and jars and shoeboxes and rinsed out lychee cans and make some sense of it.

oh, those lovely metal shelves

Then the painting. The original wall color in there was a very soft blue-white. So boring! On went the new blue and it turned out even better than I had hoped. The color looks it's super best in bright sunshine, but you'll have to settle for pictures taken at night. It's been raining for a week here anyway. Time to sew now!

cork board, crammed with ideas

I just love my thread holders

the cat-proof plant enclosure

My, what big ruffles you have!

My last project has been received, so it is safe to post pictures of it. I found a rather old fashioned pattern a few months ago that seemed perfect for Calliope. It looks a bit old fashioned... a ruffled dress with a pinafore. I actually learned an awful lot while putting it together. I'd never made proper collars and sleeve caps, let alone ones that had a trimmed edging. The pattern unfortunately only came in toddler 2-3-4-5 sizing, so I had to do a modification to get it to fit. I scaled down the entire outfit by an iteration of the sizing (I took the space difference on the pattern between size 2 and 3 and decreased the size by that) to make it more of a size 1. Then luckily I had exact measurements of Calliope's shoulder to ankle length. That saved me, I think. Everything else can be a little big and still look cute, but if the whole thing drags on the floor then that isn't very good.


I picked simple white for the under-dress, and found a subdued red floral patten for the pinafore. Then I started thinking...this could be a party dress. And this could also be a halloween costume! So I picked up some very drape-y red velour and made a cape. It was surprisingly difficult to figure out how to make a lined hooded cape with no pattern. In the end I just closed my eyes and cut the fabric and then forced it all to fit together. It does not hold up to very close scrutiny, but it definitely is good enough for a costume.


All in all my most enjoyable project yet. I didn't even grind my teeth at having to put on about 20 teeny weeny pearl buttons. Holding that dress in your arms is such a luxurious sensation. It's rather heavy, with all of the ruffles and the fabric. I can't wait to see it on her!

Best halo review ever

I played Halo for about seven minutes and decided it was tedious. My story isn't nearly as entertaining as the one of this game reviewer:




If you are having trouble looking at the video, try turning off your popup blocker. It also seems to have some issues with Firefox, so in a lovely bit of irony I had to view it in microsoft Explorer to get it to work.