Sometimes, you can’t help feeling glad that you missed the shot. That you had the wrong lens. That the picture came out blurry.
Sometimes, the screwed up shot is a gift.
Archive for the 'Country Living' Category
Here’s that bread recipe, including how I made it into pizza. Enjoy!
RegularMom’s Versatile Whole Wheat Bread:
1 1/8 cups warm water (110 degrees F)
3 tablespoons honey (or 1 tblsp. of sugar, or to taste, but add at least 1 tblsp. of something to activate the yeast)
1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour*
1 1/2 cups bread flour*
1 teaspoon salt
* I use King Arthur brand.
In bread machine:
Add water and honey, stir to dissolve it a bit, then sprinkle the yeast in. mix gently and let stand for about 5 minutes to proof.
Add oil, whole wheat flour and bread flour. Add salt last and mix gently into just the flour on top so that it doesn’t mix in with the yeast. (Salt kills yeast and keeps dough from rising.)
Set your bread machine to “dough only” and start it up. Watch the mixture for the first few minutes. If it seems too dry (little piles of dry flour are forming at the corners of the pan) then add tiny amounts of water until the dough looks slightly sticky and no dry flour is piling up anywhere. If the mixture seems too watery, sprinkle tiny amounts of flour onto the mixture until it looks only slightly sticky.
Let the machine run through its dough cycle.
When it’s done, turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Punch it down and knead it for a minute or two. Then form it into a loaf and set it into a greased loaf pan. Cover with a damp cloth and let rise for another half-hour or so until it’s looking like a nicely rounded loaf of bread.
Bake at 400 degrees F for about 20 minutes. When it’s done, the top of the loaf will have browned nicely, and the bread will sound hollow when you tap on it.
Remove from loaf pan and cool on a wire rack for at least a half hour before slicing it.
If you don’t have a bread machine:
Mix the honey and yeast with the warm water in a large bowl and let sit for about 5 minutes to proof. Then add the olive oil and the wheat flour and mix until you can’t quite get a spoon to move around in it anymore. Mix the salt into the bread flour and slowly add it to the dough mixture, using your hands to knead it. Once all the flour is in, knead the dough for about 10 minutes. Shape into a ball, and place in a large oiled bowl. Cover with a damp cloth and let rise for about an hour - until it’s doubled in size. Then turn out onto a floured surface, punch down the dough, shape into a loaf, place into greased loaf pan, cover with damp cloth and let rise again. Follow baking instructions above.
If you want to turn this into pizza dough, split the dough into two pieces when it comes out of the machine. Use a rolling pin to flatten each piece into a somewhat round circle, or try spinning it with your hands. (I’m terrible at this, so far, but it’s fun to try.) You’ll end up with two pizza rounds. Brush each lightly with olive oil, then add cheese and toppings. RegularDad loaded his pieces with garlic and oregano when he got home the other day, and it tasted fabulous. (I didn’t do that for ours because some kids don’t like the spice.)
Bake your pizzas on a large flat cookie sheet at 400 degrees F for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the cheese is bubbly and browned.
If you want to turn your dough into rolls, separate the dough into 8 pieces and shape into rolls. Bake at 400 degrees F for about 10 to 15 minutes, or until each roll sounds hollow when you tap it. Awesome for healthy dinner rolls or sandwich rolls for park days.
If you want pita bread, separate the dough into 8 pieces and roll flat to about 1/8 inch thick. Bake on a baking stone in your oven at 400 degrees for about 3 to 5 minutes. Remove each pita and cool between two damp cloths to prevent them from getting dry and hard. When they’re cool, cut them down the middle, and use a butter knife to gently pry open the pocket.
For flat bread, do the same sort of thing, but poke a lot of holes in the flattened dough with a fork to keep the center from rising. (Any time I make a batch of dough that doesn’t rise properly, I turn it into flat bread.)
So, there you have it — my basic bread dough, and the things I’ve done with it.
Go for it.
Once, when my youngest was two years old, I lost her at the zoo for about a minute and half. The entire minute and a half that I had lost her, I could hear her, I knew where she was, yet I was prevented from getting to her by a sluggish elevator door and a long flight of stairs. There’s a part of me that will FOREVER be running down that LOOOONG flight of steps, hollering her name, listening to her cry, and thinking to myself: It only takes ONE SECOND for someone to grab her. ONE SECOND. Oh God! Oh God, God, GOD!!!
Luckily, in this instance, a zoo volunteer had already reached her and was standing with her looking around for me, understanding that the wild-banshee-type shrieking she and everyone in the vicinity could hear was THIS KID’S MOTHER. I arrived moments later, shaking and breathless, and gathered my baby into my arms, and the zoo-volunteer smiled at me and walked off. And then I strapped my kid into her stroller and wouldn’t let her out for the rest of the afternoon no matter how much she fussed. And when people in our group tried to make pleasant conversation with me, I’d stare blankly at them and nod vaguely, no longer having the ability to comprehend or make small talk of the mommy variety. And we got through the day, and she’s fine. Doesn’t really remember it. Bears no lasting emotional scars or anything.
But I haven’t taken the kids to the zoo since. It’s like this mental barrier I’m having difficulty getting over:
Zoo + Small Children + Mom Burdened With Cooler and Backpacks = ULTIMATE HORROR!!!
At some point, I’ll get over it and take them to zoo again. Like maybe for a high school graduation present or something.
I know, I know. They’ll be fine. They’re older now. I’ll be fine. Everything Will Be Fine.
But then again… who needs the zoo, really? I mean, we’ve got the Discovery Channel. And the Internet. We can watch exotic animals right here at home. It smells better that way, too.
Oh, well. I could go on and on about this, but that’s not what I wanted to tell you about. What I really want to tell you about is this groundhog that lives under our shed with her four babies.
We first discovered this groundhog mama and her babies about 2 months ago when she first brought them up to daylight to see how tasty the grass in our yard was. We were actually getting ready to go out somewhere when I saw her crossing our yard followed by her four rambunctious little ones. Wanting to get a picture, I very quietly stole upstairs to grab my camera. But the minute I reappeared in the dining room with it, the girls looked at me and said: OOOOHHH!!! What is it? And then they looked out the window and saw those little groundhog babies, and that was the end of it. Out the door they went, and all hell broke loose.
As it is wont to do in my backyard.
From time to time.
So, out the door the kids went, with me trailing along after, and the groundhog mama sort of panicked and ran for it, and assumed that her babies would run along with her, I guess. Within moments, she’d dashed around towards the front yard. Her babies tried to follow her but they couldn’t keep up, and at the last minute they all dashed under our little plastic picnic table and hunkered down. All of them, that is, except for one little guy.
See that little guy over at the right? The one that’s SEPARATING FROM THE GROUP? Who do you think he reminds me of?
If you guessed my youngest daughter on that day at the zoo, you win the GRAND PRIZE. I’m not quite sure what the GRAND PRIZE is yet, but it’s yours. Or it will be, just as soon as I figure out what it is.
Right after I snapped that shot, that little guy scooted even further away from his family and hid himself under the bushes along the side of the house. The girls were both cooing and shrieking with excitement by now, and the cat was Slowly Waking Up From Her ENDLESS Nap to see what was going on. And where was Mama Groundhog?
Oh, yes. Right there. All the way around the front of the house, hiding under my car.
My car, and the long trek back around the side of the house, it all began to take on these surreal aspects of… oh… I don’t know… an elevator, and a long flight of stairs, maybe?
And the sound of my daughters shouting and laughing in the background sounded an awful lot like the din you might hear at the zoo on a summer day, when you desperately want your own voice to RISE ABOVE the noise so that your baby will hear you and know that you are on your way.
And the cat? Why, that was the predator, of course. And IT ONLY TAKES A SECOND. (Well, actually, the cat never really woke up completely. She is, after all, old. And the laziest damn thing I’ve ever met. But just pretend that she was drooling and ready to pounce. My analogy will work much nicer that way.)
I looked that Mama Groundhog in the eye. Honey, I said to her. I’ve been there. I’ve done that. Let me help you. I retreated, gathered up the (still half-asleep) cat and the kids, and herded everyone back into the house. The lone little groundhog had by now tried to cross the porch and get back under the shed, but got stuck halfway there and was now a frozen tableau of terror that looked like this:
I gave him a wide berth and went inside and waited. And after a while, the Mama Groundhog managed to come back around and pick up the three that were huddled under the picnic table, plus this Wild Child, and take them all back to the safety of the Den Under Our Shed.
With the excitement over, the girls were dispatched back to their previous task, which was finding all the library books and piling them up on the table for a final count before we returned them. After that, it was time for everyone to use the bathroom. I looked out the window one more time before we left and saw this:
She’d taken them all back home, and then started bringing them up one by one to eat. She stayed right next to each baby and never let her guard down again. I would have tried to talk to her, but I knew better. She was way too frazzled to make any attempt at conversation. I’ve had my own close-call, after all. I know what it’s like. I gave her one last nod, and took my kids off to the library for the day.
They’re all still under my shed, as far as I know. Sometimes, late in the evening when I’m doing the day’s dishes, I see the Mama Groundhog from the kitchen window. I wish I could tell her how I admire her for her good mothering. How there was never a chance that the cat could have ever caught them. How proud of her I am that she’s managed to return to the zoo so quickly.
Top left: Mama cardinal keeping a close eye on her little ones who’ve made their way out of the nest.
Top right: Papa cardinal, looking on and looking good.
Bottom left: Baby cardinal, hanging on.
Bottom right: Mama cardinal, showing him how it’s done.
That’s pretty much been the scene in my backyard today. The cat has been yowling all damn day. And there’s this suspicious-looking pile of very small, delicate gray feathers over near the swingset. And she hasn’t really been all that interested in the dry kibble I always leave out for her. But she did chow down on the Fancy Feast I finally set down for her her. So, maybe all the birds made it.
Maybe.
From www.wild-bird-watching.com:
The female [cardinal] builds the nest while the male keeps a close eye on her and the surrounding territory for predators and other males. The female will be the only one incubating the eggs.
The male’s duty during this time is to feed her on the nest and protect their territory from intruders.
Once the young hatch, both will feed them. Two broods each season are attempted. The nest is made up of twigs, bark strips, vines leaves, rootlets, paper, and lined with vines, grass and hair.
You can find the nest placed in dense shrubbery or among branches of small trees. Generally 1-15 feet above ground.
Laying 2-5 eggs that are buff-white with dark marks. The female incubates the eggs for 12- 13 days and the young leave the nest in 9-11 days after hatching.
A couple of weeks ago, RegularDad and I were sitting on the back porch together. He was putting together some toy or other, and I had my camera out and was waiting patiently to get that shot of the cardinal I posted not too long ago. I was so focused on the trees on one side of the yard that I wasn’t able to change gears fast enough to take a picture of the moment when this enormous hawk came floating over our yard and dove into the top branches of a tall tree a little further off in a neighbor’s yard.
The hawk emerged seconds later with another bird (black and obviously young) struggling in its beak. The hawk turned in the air dramatically and shot away, back over our heads and off towards the creek area, followed closely by a large crop of Very Pissed Off Blackbirds who dive-bombed this hawk and attacked it ferociously, trying to get it to drop the young bird. The screeching was incredibly loud. RegularDad and I watched this whole thing go down in amazement. In truth, the whole thing took maybe ten seconds tops.
“Holy shit! Did you see that?” RegularDad said to me. “Did you see that?”
I nodded, and then lamented the fact that it all happened too fast to get a picture of it.
“I can’t believe that,” RegularDad said. “Have you ever seen anything like that before?”
“No,” I said. “Never.”
For the rest of the afternoon, RegularDad existed in a state of utter amazement. At least twice an hour, he’d turn to me again and say: “Unbelievable! Seriously unbelievable. I never knew birds did that kind of thing.”
Finally, I said to him, “Why don’t you look it up on the Internet and see what you find?”
“Yeah,” he said, still in awe. “Yeah. I’m gonna.”
The next day I asked him, “So, did you ever look up that bird-thing online?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“Really? What did it say?”
“It said: birds do that.”
There’s no place like home…except for that other place that’s like home, that is.
Published May 21, 2008 Country Living , Photos 7 CommentsI see, according to my stats, that many of you came looking here yesterday to see if I’d posted. Many apologies for the delay. We spent all day travelling yesterday, and it went fine, except for the fact that my 5-year-old left her Leapster L-Max on the plane, and we didn’t realize it until we were almost home. (sigh)
After a long day of travel, we ordered pizza and got everyone to bed. Then, today, it was all about bathing the girls, doing laundry and shopping for groceries. It has also been all about listening to our old cat complain ceaslessly about how absolutely BORING it was here all week without us around to let her in and out every 45 seconds. She’s outside right now, but any minute she’ll be scratching at the door to be let back in, because cats honestly believe that that’s what humans were put on earth for: to open things for them. Like doors. And cans of tuna. And pretty soon, a big giant can of Whoop-Ass if she doesn’t KNOCK IT OFF ALREADY.
Anyway. The trip was fabulous. Of course. Five glorious days in which I sat around, eating whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, writing, gabbing with my girlfriends, walking, sleeping. And yes, I got a massage, but not from that nice young man. One of the participants this year was a woman who recently got her CMT license, and she brought her table and set up in the library on Saturday. IT WAS JUST AS GOOD.
It was still wintery there this year. Most of the time, it looked like this:
Wintery, but nice. Yes?
I spent a lot of time feeling a little homesick. Looking at the mountains, and the wide open spaces, and the way you can just SEE for miles and miles, I just LONGED to move back.
But then, when we got back home yesterday, the most interesting thing happened. It felt like home. Even though the trees grow tall and close in, like this:
This felt like home. This, and the way that the sun doesn’t bake you to a crisp when you’re outside. The way the breeze has a little bit of watery weight to it, and how everything smells so lush. This also was home for me. And I was glad. Because really…how lucky am I, to feel at home in two such different places?
I’d write more and more on this, but let’s face it: I’m home. And there’s things to deal with. Like the fact that during the time it took me to type this up, the girls had some sort of argument that resulted in my 5-year-old slamming her door hard enough to make the smoke detector above it go off. So, in between paragraphs I’ve been getting up and dealing with the EXTREMELY LOUD BEEPING SOUNDS and handing out a few stern lectures about door-slamming. And finally, I had to take the dectector off the wall and remove the battery just to have some peace and quiet. And now, rest time is over. It’s time for a snack and a favorite TV show before swimming lessons. Then I’ve got to rush around getting a late dinner on the table.
Yep…. We’re definitely home.
One of the biggest traps in homeschooling, if you ask me, is the constant pressure to Do Things With Other People. Just this morning, in my email, I finalized plans for friends to come over on Friday afternoon. As I was finishing that, the phone rang, and it was more friends asking about getting together for a day trip to a museum soon. Or, if not that, at least a play date. Or how about the zoo? What are you doing this weekend? Do you want to check out my co-op? It goes on and on.
And believe me, I’m not complaining at all. It’s good to have all these friends. It’s good to get together. But it’s also good to just not get together sometimes. And for me, being new and still sort of defensive and insecure about this whole homeschooling thing, I have to remind myself a lot to Not Always Be Getting Together With People. My previous post, in which you all were so kind as to reassure me that my friend was not exactly being friendly, is an excellent case in point. I could have said no when that woman called and asked if they could stop by. I should have said no, in fact. We were all tired. I’d spent the day sorting toys and catching up on laundry. I wasn’t in the mood for this woman at all to begin with. (Because honestly? That afternoon tea was only the tip of a very large iceberg. The woman’s got some ISSUES, is all I’m sayin’.)
But the thing is, I exist on the defensive most of the time. When people find out we homeschool and start in with the endless questions on socialization, I want to be armed and ready with a Packed Social Schedule. It’s ridiculous and exhausting, but it’s hard to stop myself. And I’m not the only one who does this. Most of the women I know here are much more busy than I am. They’re stretched thin, and ragged, and possibly on the edge of burnout. I can see it in their eyes. And listening to them, I’m learning to simply say No to the endless stream of activities available to us. But when someone who isn’t a homeschooler starts asking THOSE QUESTIONS, I’m always quick to tell them all the millions of things we do all the time, and then having told people that, I begin to think that I’d better ramp up the social schedule, just in case those people with absolutely no experience homeschooling whatsoever are RIGHT and my kids NEED to be surrounded by other people 24-7.
And the truth is, we need LESS people around. We need some space. We need at least one day a week where we don’t go anywhere or have people over. For us, that day is Wednesday. And I guard Wednesdays fiercely. But maybe, I’m thinking, we need more than just that one day.
Today, it was just the three of us. We did some schoolwork, and took a quick run to the local elementary school so I could cast my vote in the primary. Then, seeing that the weather was good, we decided it might be nice to grab some sandwiches from Subway and go on over to the local lake and just hang out and see what there was to see.
And this is what we saw*:
And the thing is, it was JUST US. We didn’t bring anyone else along. We didn’t have to synchronize our watches or sign up on a Yahoo message board or coordinate with half a dozen other people via email to have this day. We just got ourselves some lunch and went. And I didn’t have to talk to anyone. Or entertain anyone. Or encourage anyone. Or listen to anyone else’s bullshit. Or worry that my kids weren’t getting along with someone else’s kids. Or worry that the mom I was with had the better curriculum, or theory, or hairstyle, car, shoes, magazine subscriptions or WHATEVER. I just had to sit back, relax and take some pictures.
I think we need more days where it’s Just Us. I think that may be another way to take better care of me and my kids.
*WordPress has this new gallery feature. I’ve spent some time dinking around with it to see if it’s worth using. What do you think? Is it too much clicking? Or do you like this layout? Comments on this will be appreciated. 
This isn’t the most spectacular picture I’ve ever taken, but I just love it anyway. There’s something about the color scheme that makes me want to sit down and drink tea and sketch things all day long.
