HAPPY YULE!!!!

Sometimes life can be very interesting in a week and sometimes nothing happens at all..
or rather nothing of note happens. …
this week isn't one of those quiet ones...
 Last Saturday when I posted I was doing so while we were out grocery shopping, on a very nice warm day, but the day after was even warmer. So warm that me and Silver were able to eat breakfast outside at our outdoor table without coats on. Halfway through December in our climate that's just weird... We did enjoyed it immensely however. Later that day we spent watching a stump burn out in a fire ring we borrowed from Queen Sized Tink and her family. We haven't had a camp fire in a while and it was nice to have.

 I have a couple cute pictures of the last batch of kittens we had that I finally got around to tinkering with. Merlin and Lady have had their moments of oddity just like our other cats. The first is of Lady on the food dehydrator:
 
 Then little Merlin in the pot from making my spaghetti, I thought it looked like he was searching for food.
 I also have a picture I took in October of the pond we're digging out full of water. I have tried out a new recipe, it is for sourdough pretzels; they were very good so try it out:
 Sponge:
 1C sourdough starter
 1 ½ C white flour
 1C warm water
 Remove the starter from your refrigerator and stir it well. Take out one cup and place it in a warm bowl of 2 quart or larger capacity. Return your starter to the refrigerator. Add the warm water and stir until well mixed. Slowly add the white flour stirring continuously to blend the flour in well. You want the mixture to be smooth, you may use an egg beater or an electric mixer. Cover and set in a warm place to proof, this can be 8-12 hours. I let mine go overnight.

 Pretzels:
 1 ½ C sponge
 1 C HOT water
 2 T butter
 3 T sugar
 2 t salt
 5 ½ C flour
 1 egg yolk
 2 T thick cream or evaporated milk
 The first thing you wish to do is stir up your sponge and return 1 cup of it to your starter, replenishing it. Then with the rest of your ingredients at room temperature, you can start your prep. Add the 2 T butter, 3 T sugar, and 2 t salt to the 1 C of hot water stir and cool till lukewarm. Put the sponge in a warm bowl (btw I just use the bowl I proofed in), add the water mix to it and stir in. Add 4 cups of the flour, ½ a cup at a time stirring after each addition. This will get very stiff! Turn out onto a floured board and knead in approximately 1 ½ cups more of the flour. The dough will be very stiff. Place in a greased bowl, turn over and cover. Let set for 2 hours to proof (please note it DOES NOT SAY until doubled). On a board that has been scraped clean of flour break off pieces of dough about the size of a large egg. Roll each piece out with your palms of your hands until it is about 18 inches long and ½ inch in diameter. Twist into the shape of a pretzel. Place on a greased cookie sheet. Brush them with a mixture of the egg yolk and the cream. Cover and place in a warm 85 degree spot for 30 minutes for proofing. Then brush with the yolk/cream mixture again and sprinkle with coarse salt. Bake in a preheated 425 degree oven for 15 minutes.
 I can tell you it was a very good batch of pretzels, Silver commented that they were better than any we have bought in any store.
 Last night was Yule for those of you who celebrate it, and Silver and I attempted to stay up all night with a fire lit in the same fire ring from Tink. We set up piles of wood for the night and even a kitchen for some foods were were going to cook over the fire.
  The only problem we encountered was that we were too tired to keep it going come midnight. So what we did do was bring the wood that was burning into the house and put it into the wood stove and set it up to keep burning all night. This morning it was still burning and all that was needed was to set a couple extra pieces on the fire to get a good flame going.

 I would like to take a moment to mention something that has been in the news for well over a week now.

(*steps on soapbox*) The shooting disaster at the Connecticut school, personally I think it was a horrible tragedy. I also believe in gun rights, HOWEVER... I do have an issue with people who buy assault rifles or large magazines and say they have them for hunting. If you need that many bullets to shoot a food animal then there is a problem with you.

Also that being said … if guns are taken away the only ones who will have them are cops and crooks... BECAUSE crooks don't care how they get the weapons in the first place so removing the legal way of getting them doesn't stop crimes. The crooks will still get the weapons if they want them.

 I hate to say it but in this day and age, if someone wants to commit a violent crime they -WILL-, if they don't care what happens to them after the fact legality won't prevent it. This is something that those who are in power either don't care about or forget “conveniently”.

 I do hope that person who killed those kids who never had a chance to live burns in what ever version of HELL they believe in. I also hope people don't forget that some of those kids killed might have siblings that need hearts and hands reaching out to help them. The other kids that -survived- this tragedy will have a horrible emotional scar that they will carry for a very long time just due to the fact of how old they are.

 Now here is something else to think on about this crime. In many countries around the world this happens daily... and no one notices or seems to care. It happens in an American school and the world stares at it. We need to stop this WORLDWIDE... not just here.(*steps off soapbox*)

 http://youtu.be/fDTKypXUwoI

I hope everyone had a good Yule and that all have a Merry Christmas, or whatever holiday you have.

 Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be... .

Good Bye Bandit

Well we made an unfortunate discovery this morning when we went out to water the garden.  We discovered Bandit, Silver's favorite cat out by the well house dead.  We think she was on her way back to the house and to her kittens when she just fell over dead.  As it looks like she was in mid run when she died.

She's been here with us since before we moved here, she made the trek from New York with us.  She will be missed, especially since she was one of our best hunters.  Also the best momma cat we had.  A few days ago I was trying to keep her out of the house, as she was trying to bring in a full sized garter snake for her kittens.

She has been one of our most photogenic cats, as she always wound up in positions where we just had to take a picture and comment on it.

Oh, and here is Silver with Bandit back in New York sharing a nap:

As for her position in our home, I'd say if our cats were a pride of lions; Bandit was the head female.  She was the best momma cat i have ever seen, and that is considering that her mother was a wonderful cat mom.   I hope Bandit is with her sister Paige and they are chasing down some huge rodent somewhere.

We will miss you Bandit,

Good Journey...

No rain and heat?

Well I guess my title for today isn't100% true, we got a cold front move through yesterday and we might get some rain today as I took a gander at the radar this morning and there was a lovely green spot heading for us. So we might get some rain out of this after over a week with nothing.

We have spent the last couple of days without working on the root cellar as Silver has not been feeling well, he seems to have a bit of a cold with congestion. The first day of it he had an awful sore throat and felt yucky. So I made him this wonderful tea... (just ask my kids about how wonderful tea is when you get sick around me), it had some black tea, red pepper, and candied ginger in it. His complaints were mainly sore throat and that his lungs hurt from coughing. So I gave him the pepper for his lungs and the ginger for an all around antibiotic affect, and also to take care of the throat. Now while it helped, he has not asked me for any more.

I have finally perused the homeschool info Penny sent along to me and I love this particular site:

http://www.kidspast.com/index.php

It is a really cool site that has some fun learning games that even my 14yr old likes. also through it I found an "online learning game world" for them to join. Heh, I never thought I'd see the day that my kids would fight over a learning game. As yet they were arguing over how much time one of the others got in it. even better I saw my son working on the Anatomy section on it and I don't think half the questions they asked he knew anything about. So over time I do think the kids will gain some info from this that is good.

OK, back to the weather a minute. I have been watering my plants every morning and after seeing the lovely grey skies I decided this morning to not and hope that it pours here, if it doesn't it probably won't hurt my plants to go one day without water as I have been watering them well every day. I am so happy about my tomato plants, no flowers yet; but they are about the size of the plants I bought last year at this time. However, these plants are in much better shape. Funny thing is, and I know I'm going to keep say this. The tomatoes in my box planted have thicker stems, than the ones in the ground. One of my Steviea plants might not make it, but as long as one of them does I will learn about caring for them and maybe next year I can get more of them.

We did have a minor incident yesterday morning. When I was out feeding the dogs one of the kittens from the second litter followed her mom (who has no worries over dogs) and walked right up to our spaniel's food bowl. Spaniel+small animal= hurt kitten

She is alive, but we think she has nerve damage, Lucky just did what most untrained hunting type dogs do... he caught the animal that came near him that he did not recognize as "family". We have kept the dogs away from the momma cats since bandit the first momma decided that anything not human was not coming near her babies. Also last year when Pagie had her kittens we mysteriously lost one of them when we were out one day and everyone was inside due to weather. We knew it was not Paris as we know what Paris does around any baby, she tries to be momma. So right now we are trying to get the hurt kitten recovered from her shock and see how well she will walk, if she stays Ok we will be keeping her and she will be called Dottie. We are also deciding if Lucky's actions are something we need to worry about. I don't think it was done in malice as there was no growl, it was just like he was trying to catch her. *shrugs* I don't know...

I am hoping Silver will feel well enough to get outside and inflate our flat tire and see if it is just a "over worked" air loss (I'm crossing my fingers on that one). We will need the car running by Wedsnday(SP?), so we can go grocery shopping. We are hoping to show our newest neighbor's on the 17th the one discount grocer.

Well I guess I better wrap this up as the sky outside is getting darker (yeah for open windows and doors!), I turned the AC off this morning and opened the house up, I've been getting the obligatory sore throat from dry air from the AC unit. So maybe we can get some humidity in here.

Be Well and Blessed Be...

I hate Fleas!

Good thing flea is a four-letter word because I about to start using it like one. Our little kittens are covered in them and so of course now our house is infested. We spent the morning pulling every ounce of bedding out of our house and hung ti on the clothes lines. Then we went and totally swept out the house (the kids were amazed at how fast we got the floor clean). We booted every cat outside and set their food out there then we hosed the interior of the building down with a flea and tick spray. I hate using such stuff but right now we have not much choice in the matter.

In about an hour I'm going to attempt to wash 8 kittens and hope just some Ivory bar soap will get the fleas. Then I'm going to see if I can get the mommas into the bath water too, hopefully with almost no lacerations.

On another kitten note, for some reason the second mom has not taught her kittens to use the litter box. I do not know why not, does anyone know the best way to teach one that has no idea? The first mom cat taught her babies to use it, and it was interesting to watch.

She stood in the litter box and called the three over, then she called one into it and stepped out. I'm guessing she told them what to do, as they them "went" crying as I think it was their first times. They buried it and are now very good about using it. I guess you learn something new everyday.