Progress on the Barn

Here's our new barn. They got it from a stack of materials to this configuration in about a week or so, plus or minus. Today another crew is evening and smoothing the dirt inside in prep for the concrete pour, which should take place in the morning. That'll be good, to get the concrete poured before the rains come on Sunday (or Saturday night).

I knew the dimensions we were looking to cover, and I was all over the site after Steve staked it out, and when the dirt man came in and built the pad up for the building, but it wasn't really until they started getting the walls up until I could see how big this thing really is! "This thing is huge, baby," to quote Tiny Elvis. Or Billy Fucillo. It's a big mammer-jammer.

Anyway, today's crew is leveling and smoothing the ground, and adding sand - three truck loads so far - and, as I Said, we expect to pour cement tomorrow!

Our Morton man, Charles, was out here most of the morning, overseeing and fining up the details, and he asked me, "How would you feel about pouring tomorrow? Would that be okay?"

"Would that be okay? Oh, I don't know, let me check my appointment book - YEAH!"

Steve says, "Hey Now!"

So they're getting the ground ready.

Hot Potatoes!

Leaning Toward Vegetarianism?

I wouldn't go so far as to call my household Vegetarian, but I have been interested in studying that way since my dad turned me onto a book, The RAVE Diet. This stands for No Refined foods, No Animal products, No Vegetable oils, No Exceptions, basically recommending a fat-free vegan lifestyle. I was so impressed by what I saw that I ordered my own copy of the book (which is currently packed safely away in storage :\ ) and it came with the DVD featuring interviews and testimonials from former omnivores-now-fat-free-vegans telling about their health problems, and how those problems improved or resolved when they changed what they ate.

We've all heard that "meat contains complete protein." This book and its DVD say True, but the body, in processing what you feed it, actually has to break those proteins down and then reconstruct them according to its needs. You can save it the trouble (and improve your health) by taking your protein in the components available from plant sources. A combination of legumes and grains, such as the traditional beans and rice, or beans and corn, offers the protein building blocks the body needs to assemble the complete protein it needs, and as a bonus, includes plenty of fiber as well, something animal proteins cannot offer. Makes sense to me.

It has been and is a challenging path to follow, having been raised as an omnivore and living in a predominantly omnivorous culture.

Unfortunately, two of my beloved relatives have developed cases of gout whose excruciating gouty attacks are  precipitated by meaty meals - a heartbreaking circumstance for any meat lover, to be sure.

So I have taken the opportunity to lean a little more deeply into the fat-free-vegan/RAVE way, recommending meatless options and cooking meatless meals. As I say, I wouldn't go so far as to call our household vegetarian, but we are taking things one meal at a time.

If this has piqued your curiosity, if maybe you're interested in taking an anonymous stroll around the vegetarian block, check out the Fat Free Vegan website. I'm so impressed with it that I have a shortcut link to it right on my desktop. Very helpful in planning meatless dishes and meals. Check it out, and thanks for reading!

Monday, Rain, Fireflies, Junebugs and Roses

Is it still Monday?

We got some rain Saturday - mostly a Cooperstown kind of rain, gentle and straight down, as compared to the hard, sideways rain we so often get here in Oklahoma. We'd been out  somewhere and were back home, powering down for the night. I was getting reports ready and printing forms for the next day's meeting, when Steve called to me, "Hey, Vicki, you gotta come see this!"

I followed his voice to find him out on the deck under the awning.

"There, under the long trailer," he said, pointing. "Under the tarp."

It took a few seconds, but then I began to see flickering and blinking lights. They looked like tiny blinking LED lamps. I rubbed my eyes and cleaned my glasses, and the lights were still there. Fireflies had taken shelter from the rain under cover of an old-fashioned oiled-canvas tarp we had laid over the wood that was stored on Dad's long flat trailer. Sheltered under their own makeshift awning with plenty of Firefly business to conduct, there they were, blinking away. What a happy thing to see! I'm sorry I wasn't able to get a suitable picture of this to post, but hopefully you've already conjured one in your mind.

Makes me happy every time I see fireflies, and a little bit sad that there don't seem to be as many these summers as I remember having seen in my youth. I plan to study in the next season or so, how to attract, encourage, and support fireflies. I would sure rather have fireflies than June bugs!

When we moved here the first time, about fourteen or fifteen years ago, I moved a Queen Elizabeth Rose bush out here with us and planted it under the yard light. The Queen Elizabeth bears large, lush blossoms in a beautiful shade of medium-deep pink and have a wonderful fragrance. We always liked to say of that Queen Elizabeth Rose that she had petals the size of bed sheets and thorns the size of rhinoceros horns. A substantial and imposing rosebush, the Queen Elizabeth. I wanted to take her with us to Cooperstown when we moved up there, but I had no room to pack one more thing. I blessed her with love and left her behind.

On more than one return visit to Oklahoma I wanted like anything to come out here and dig up the Queen Elizabeth to take to Cooperstown with me, but that never worked out for one reason or another. One of the things I looked forward to on our return was seeing and nurturing the Queen Elizabeth Rose bush again.

I guess I must have also planted another rose bush under the light too. So in love with the Queen Elizabeth, I'm embarrassed to say I don't remember this other bush's name, but it produces smallish red and white variegated blooms. The coloring reminds me of peppermint candy. Unfortunately, the Queen Elizabeth is gone, and no trace of her to be found. I do have my eyes peeled for another one. 

This Peppermint Rose bush, though. She's about four feet tall now. She lives under the yard light, as I said, and this summer the ding-dang June bugs ate every leaf on that bush! Ate her right down to sticks!  I thought sure she was dead, and wonder if that must have been what happened to my Queen Elizabeth, only after she was gone down to dead, thorny sticks, someone pulled her out of the ground.  

I was sad to see what had happened to the Peppermint Rose, and vowed to plant roses again, somewhere away from the yard light. Then I noticed she was putting forth new growth! I love the way roses' new growth leaves are tinged in red. Soon she was completely reclothed in the red leaves of new growth, and as those leaves began to turn green, here came a couple dozen buds and she bloomed again! 

Part of my future plans for this place create a dedicated rose garden. I was surprised to hear someone say roses are "hard to grow." I have never had any difficulty keeping roses. They take some time and attention - the successful rose gardener becomes acquainted with their needs and sees to those needs - it is not that difficult. Or maybe I have a gift for roses. Maybe they like me.

Whatever.

Anyway, yes, I guess it is still Monday. Been a long, busy day. I'm going to don my jammies and settle in for the night. Thanks for reading.

Live Well and Be Happy,
Vicki in Mustang

Zone 7

The Bandit

A few weeks ago Steve went to make himself a peanut butter sandwich and couldn't find the bread.

"It should be right here," I said, looking on the middle shelf of the stainless steel wire shelves, but it was not there. We both looked all over for it. Zippo. Then I remembered having seen something out of place in the yard.

The masons had started work on our chimney. They came with a huge (special-built) fifth wheel trailer bearing scaffolding, wheelbarrows, the brick, of course, about a million five-gallon buckets, and many assorted tools. It was in the midst of all that working-mess that I had seen something that didn't quite belong.

I went outside and looked, and sure enough, it was the plastic bag that used to house the bread we were looking for. It was torn (as well as empty) and we suspected a stray dog. We figured this was why both cats had crowded into bed with me the night before.

We have made it a point since we've been here to put any and all food trash in the big dumpster anyway, an idea reinforced when the bread disappeared. After that happened we took to setting anything we thought might be attractive in that way to a foraging critter way up high.

Next thing was I couldn't find was a bag of home-grown vine-ripened tomatoes that I had harvested, which I had set up on a shelf about waist high. We figured that must've been an omniverous raccoon. Grrr.

Then one night we'd been some-I-don't-remember-where and got home after dark. When we came in I noticed that a stack of paper plates and the plastic forks and spoons on the floor. These had been on top of the water cooler, about six feet up. The loaf of bread that had been with them was gone, along with a banana. With all that had also been a plastic clamshell box of oatmeal raisin cookies, which was laying on the floor. Hmph. Had to be a raccoon. Only thing we couldn't figure out was why the little booger didn't take the cookies. Maybe our return home interrupted the burglary?

I took me a flashlight right out to the toolshed right then and got the havahart trap. Our dilema in setting that trap is making it attractive to our intinded "prey," yet it be something that our own cats will leave alone. We decided to set this one with rest of the cookies.

We didn't miss the coffee canister until the next morning.

Yes, whatever climbed up, knocked our paper plates and plastic ware off the top of the water cooler and took another loaf of bread and a banana had carried off our coffee canister!

Certain this must be a raccoon (and trying to imagine what in heaven's name a raccoon wants with a canister of coffee) I searched the brush behind the house. Sure enough, there was our red plastic Folgers coffee canister at the base of a sweetgum tree. I surveyed the setting pretty thoroughly for any presence of poison ivy and made my way through the brush and retrieved the coffee. The only damage was a small series of pinhole tooth marks in the lid. Either he couldn't get the lid off, or maybe after he poked the holes in it decided it didn't smell as good as he thought it would. We got our coffee back though.

I checked the trap and something got the cookies without springing the trap. Just a few little crumbs left that had fallen through the cage bars was all that was left. I left the trap where it was because I planned to bait it again.

Night before last a noise awoke me. I cicn't know what noise it was that woke me, but upon awakening I heard a rythmic metalic tapping sound, like someone was fiddling with something downstairs. I grabbed a flashlight and went downstairs, cats at my heels.

Couldn't see anything untowards, and tried to triangulate in on where the sound was coming from, but sound carries differently in this A-frame. I intuitioned that perhaps something was fooling with the havahart trap. I shone the flashlight over that way, and guess what? There he was, the masked bandit raccoon. He had gone in there to try to dig those cookie crumbs out from under and between the cage grid and got himself good and trapped. I slept very well the rest of the night!

Next morning Steve moved him across the yard where he would be out of the way and in the shade, and I called Animal Control. Our New Hero and Favorite Animal Control Officer Kim came out and said, "Yes, we do have a relocation program," and took the raccoon away. When she brought our cage back she said, "I opened that door and he ran like a bandit!"

...Like the bandit he is! ..Steal my coffee... I don't think so!

August Already!

I cannot believe it's been a month and a half since I last posted! We have been busy, busy, busy, though. The house is coming along, the garden is coming along, complications arise and are ironed out, dealt with, or worked around.

Grandmother accused me (probably more than once) of telling everything I know, but some things I will wait to report to the Whole Wide World until the fat lady sings, as they say. In some cases, for similar reasons a pitcher doesn't talk about a no-hitter-in-progress, in other cases - ah - more along the lines of the fifth amendment.

Here's what I can tell you.

It's August and, Baby, it's HOT. I checked the weather earlier this week and the five day forecast said Sunny and Hundred degree high temps for each day of the forecast.

The masons, Tom and his son Tommy, have built us a beautiful chimney (pictures later).

The garden is exploding, along with the population of cowpea aphids (accursed vermin!) and some creepy black bugs with pointed butts and orange or red markings that make them look scary that are eating my tomato leaves, beet greens and swiss chard leaves down to the ribs. I thought they were blister bugs, but they might be something else. I despise the ugly things, though, and smash them every chance I get.

Progress continues on our house. Steve has accomplished an unbelievable amount of work almost entirely by himself, but we are far from done. Plans are in the works to get him some help so we can get enclosed before cold weather arrives in Central Oklahoma. Yes, all my northern friends, I know - after having lived seven years in central New York, "cold" is a relative term, but something resembling winter will visit us in a few months and we need to be ready, so we are working on getting some help and a way to pay them.

My online venues' hearts are still beating, but their pulses are a little weaker than I prefer. The host for my main store, EightSusquehanna.com, migrated to a new server, which will be great once I learn all the new tricks. I think everyone can find it okay, but some things behind the scenes have changed, so I have more things to learn. My eBay store sells well enough that my inventory there is getting pretty skinny. I hope to make a couple days in the near future to evaluate and restock both inventories.

We brought the cats, Muffin and Cookie, out here a couple weeks ago and both their countenances improved immediately. Seems like they remember the place and are happy to be here. They spend their days who-knows-where and materialize at the sound of my voice in conversation or at the far end of the garden where the Catnip grows, or at dusk when we feed and retire for the night. The Mighty Muffin has become our Brave Protector, warding off would-be trespassers of the feline persuasion. What a guy, that Muffin!

Unfortunately, before he came out here we were graced by the darting presence of a painfully skinny, pregnant, half-grown kitty. Believing her to be the last of the strays the former tenant left behind, I attempted to seduce her into captivity with the idea of turning her over to Animal Control. A smart one, she was, and would not be tricked into any box or cage. She finally allowed herself to be petted if one had food and I took the opportunity to pick her up. Big mistake. She turned into a little tornado of a cat, all claws and teeth. She had her teeth in the heel of my left hand when I dropped her into a pet carrier, much less graciously than I had intended. Now we await the results of rabies testing. Kids, when your parents and teachers say, "Never touch a wild animal or any animal you don't know," they are not kidding, so pay attention.

What else? I go into town about every other day and wash the laundry and bring it back out here to the place and hang it on the line. In this heat it dries almost before I'm done hanging it! It's a practical and somewhat romantic throwback to my youth when it was common to see clothes hanging on a line to dry. I'm having the time of my life.

I'm learning about the plants that grow here, and about the symbiosis and pattern of life here. For instance, we have many plants here whose presence is indicative of acid soil. We had blossom end rot in some (but not all) of our tomatoes, which is indicative of low calcium in the soil, which is another symptom of acid soil. But we have "high" levels of calcium in our well water - so what happens is that the acid soil causes the calcium to wash out of the soil and into the water table. I figured that out all by myself.

Some mornings before light we can look outside and see deer in the yard. In the dark of dawn or dusk we are likely to see rabbits, who are probably the little dickenses who are eating my tomatoes before I get to them.

Priorities have not yet lent themselves to figuring out how to get television out here since all the stations have now gone digital, but we sure do get that Sirius Radio signal! We like the Deep Tracks station (Sirius 16) quite a bit. Jethro Tull, Little Feat, Leon Russell, to name only three of hundreds. It's great!

This has been something of a stream-of-consciousness post. The longer I sit at the keyboard, the more things I think of to tell you, but we'll leave some for next time. This post is long enough. Thanks for reading!

Tino's Cold Cheese Pizza

When we lived in Cooperstown there was a little pizzaria, Tino's, on Chestnut Street. Tino had a fairly typical menu for such a restaurant and would do slices for lunch. One of his menu items was Cold Cheese Pizza and all his menus bore the phrase, "Home of the Cold Cheese." Best I could determine, he was talking about cold cheese on a pizza.

Cold cheese on a pizza? Why? I didn't get it. It sounded gross.

My friends, co-workers, husband and I, as well as most visitors we entertained, enjoyed Tino's slices for lunch and whole pizzas for dinner and other occasions. We came to be such regulars that when Tino would see our shadow cross the door, he would himself call out our order, and it would be ready by the time we got to the counter. We ate a lot of Tino's.

Then came Jason. Jason Schiellack, then Manager of Membership (now promoted to Director of Membership) at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, hails from Wisconsin. Everyone liked to rib him about being a "cheesehead" but he really is himself one cheese lovin' dude. It didn't take Jason long at all to sample that cold cheese pizza. Jason is the one who successfully introduced me to it. I must say I was hesitant to try this strange arrangement of cold cheese on a pizza, but from the "The First One is Free, Kid," Department, I was hooked from the first time I tried it.

The next time I went in, I asked Tino, "What's the story on that cold cheese pizza?"

Tino explained that when they had a pizza shop in Oneonta (a college town) they'd get these big rushes of diners, say, at lunch time or when classes or an entertainment event would let out. They'd be overrun with a shop full of hungry college age kids ordering slices! Slices! Slices! and they'd be back there slingin' pizzas as fast as they could. They'd pull those bubbling hot pizzas out of the oven and slice 'em up, but they were way too hot to eat - loosen the skin right off the roof of your mouth (Ouch!) - until someone had the ingenious idea of throwing a handful of cold shredded mozzarella cheese on top of those extraordinarily hot slices to keep from injuring thier avid, loyal, ravenous and impatient customers. Soon people began asking for slices that way. A cult of pizza was born.

When my sister, who has never been to Cooperstown or Oneonta, learned that I love cold cheese pizza, her response was same as mine had been in the beginning - "Cold cheese on a pizza? Why? I don't get it. Sounds gross!"

Unfortunately, any explanation I can offer in black words on white ground can not possibly come anywhere near doing it justice, but try to think of the most excellent thin crust cheese pizza you can imagine, piping hot - the way the crust bends down when you try to pick it up, so hot the topping almost slides off, melting - with a handful of shredded Mozzarella cheese thrown on top as it goes on the plate. Be assured, the juxtaposition of cold cheese on hot pizza is a delightful surprise. If you ever have the chance, try one. It'll change your life. Trust me.

We still get the weekly Cooperstown newspaper, The Freeman's Journal. Comes in the mail every week, right as rain. It's fun to keep up with the goings on in the village where we spent the last seven years of our lives. We always liked to say the village is so small, everyone takes turns being on the front page of The Freeman's Journal. It's real home towny. I saw in the FJ recently that someone bought Tino's.

That is happy and sad news to me. Happy if it was what Tino wanted, happy for him and his if he came out well on the sale. Sad to think Tino's won't be there any more. The new guys might even still call it Tino's if they paid him enough for such a priviledge, but it sure won't really be Tino's if Tino isn't there.

I am familiar with the other restaurant owned and operated by the people who bought Tino's. I certainly wish them the best, but I have to say, they're no Tino by a long shot. Not even close. So I guess we'll see. On the other hand I don't suppose I really need to trouble my pretty little head about it because I don't live there anymore!

Tino, wherever you're going and whatever you do, I bid you a fond farewell and wish you Health, Happiness and Prosperity. I thank you for having opened up a shop in Cooperstown, for your friendship, and for the exquisite experience of Cold Cheese Pizza. Cheers, buddy.

Garden Update and Field Pea Lore

I am sorry to say that I have slacked way off blog entries since I got Facebook, so to try to make up for it a little bit, I'm posting this entry with an updated photo of my garden, which is fairly exploding out of the ground.

We have already enjoyed a jalapeno pepper bigger than my whole thumb, a Roma tomato bigger than any I've ever seen in a grocery store (and way tastier), a few little golf-ball sized onions (because I just couldn't wait), several yellow squash, which are surprisingly sweet, and two hefty servings of green beans, yum! But wait, there's more - today I saw a bright yellow spot in one of the rows and wondered how a dandelion grew there so quickly, but it was my first Marigold blossom of the season. Good Morning Merry Sunshine!

In this photo, on the left is the tomato row; in the middle, there, is a row of Georgia Sweet onions, and that row on the right, toward the front are the yellow squash, and behind them you can see some neat trellises I made for cucumbers, cantaloupe (also known as muskmelon), and watermelon. On the crossways rows in the foreground, the little sprouts you see marching across the image from right to left are pink-eye purple-hulls, a variety of what are commonly called field peas. The Pink-eye purple-hulls are close cousins to black-eyed peas, which you may have heard of.

Black eyed peas are significantly involved in a particular southern tradition of eating black eyed peas on January first for good luck and prosperity in the coming year. Grandma Susie introduced this tradition to me many years ago. You can have 'em any way you wish - with or without greens, cornbread, any variety of pork - the black-eyed peas themselves are the thing.

This tradition evolved, as Grandma Susie explained to me, from the point that black eyed peas and all their little cousins are humble food, inexpensive and easy to prepare and, as you can see, one can even grow them in the home garden. As a bonus to all that, they're also quite tasty. It follows that if one were to start the new year with such humble fare, things could only get better. Steve and I have become almost superstitious in our observance of this tradition - January first must not pass without our having some black-eyed peas, even if we have to get them out of a can from the grocery store!

I could grow black eyed peas, and probably will, but I so love the pink-eye purple-hulls. I was introduced to pink-eye purple-hulls by a woman named Mildred Wallace, mother of my dear friend Sue Mitchell. My children and I went to visit Sue at Mildred's house in Arkansas one summer back in the eighties. Mildred was a pip! She nearly always had a "chaw of terbacky" in her cheek. Mildred grew a thick stand of pink-eye purple-hulls every summer. She ate many of them fresh and home-canned the rest, had enough to keep herself well stocked and send home with her loved ones. They weren't quite ready to harvest when we were there that summer, so we had some of the last of the home-canned from the season before - delicious. I also learned from Mildred that summer how to make biscuits. Yeah, biscuits! Tender, flaky biscuits, the kind you love with breakfast. I'll tell you about Mildred's biscuits in another post because this one is about "eye beans."

Black eyed peas are a pristine creamy white with a distinct black eye. They cook up from dried relatively quickly and are tasty. You can embellish the flavor with various seasonings, maybe a joint of ham if you're so inclined, or just enjoy them pretty much the way they come. They are definitely black and white. Once I've actually grown some, I can tell you more about their habit, their pods, and so forth.

Pink-eye purple-hulls are exactly that. One of the fun things about shelling them is that the pods will stain your fingers purple. One of the not-so-fun things about shelling them is the same thing - they will stain your fingers, and it is persistent. Doesn't wash out easily. The beans or peas, whichever one might wish to call them, are a little more pale mauvish in color, with a deeper, sort of a dusty plum colored eye. As I mentioned before, they are tasty prepared from fresh, they home-can well, or cook up from dried relatively quickly, like their black-eyed cousins. My affection for this legume interferes with any objectivity I might have, so I can't really say between black eyes and pink eyes which one has the better flavor. They're just tasty.

Time marches on and both Sue and her mother Mildred have gone on to the Big Acreage in the Sky. I have no doubt whatsoever that Mildred is in charge of a thick stand of the Heavenly equivalent of Pink-eye Purple-hulls, and that Sue is pointing out to newly arrived angels, "Well, there's a real good example of a pair of wings, right there on your shoulders." I learned a lot from those two women, individually and collectively, miss them both, and think of them often. My old friend Pappy Hines would say "They're not dead as long as we're alive to remember them," and to that I offer Cheers to Sue, Mildred and Pappy.

Y'all go grow yourselves some pink-eye purple-hulls!