Garlic lemonade

A post two days in a row??  I  know.  I'm amazing.

I've been sick for the past week with a sore throat, a cough, and congestion that rains down heaviest on me at night, while I'm trying to sleep.  It has been swell . . . yeah right.

Aside from the initial intake of echinacea tincture, I've been taking large doses of Vitamin C, gargling with tea tree oil in warm water, and drinking a warm garlic-lemon tea.  I got the idea and recipe from my favorite family health go-to reference book, Aviva-Jill Romm's Naturally Healthy Babies and Children.

It is soothing to a sore throat, tastes nice, and boosts the immune system.  Win-win-win.  I've really been savoring it.

Garlic Lemonade

• 4-6 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 quart boiling water
• Honey to taste
• Lemon juice to taste

Pour the boiling water over the crushed garlic cloves in a quart canning jar, cover, and let sit for at least a half-hour.  Reheat the garlicky water as needed on the stove-top, adding it to the honey at the bottom of your favorite mug.  Stir and add lemon juice to taste.  Sip freely.

It took for-ev-er

This morning it took me over two hours to assemble a Vegetable Beef soup, something that should take a half-hour.  All I had to do was brown the meaty soup bones and chop onions, garlic, cabbage, carrots, potatoes, and kale.  All the other vegetables are dried and just need to be dumped in.  Honestly . .  . not much to it.  But there were boys crying and fighting left and right. 

The littlest guy tried to carry a step-stool into another room while I chopped whatever-it-was and fell on it, pinching his fingers.  (This was just one of the many crying fits he contributed over the elongated prep-time.)

The middle guy had a panic attack because he couldn't pull up his sleeves or wash his hands fast enough (as fast as his bigger brother) to come and touch the gelatinous stock.  (Seriously . . . it was amazing . . . like beef jello.)

The oldest was in shambles because he wants so badly to build a conservatory but doesn't know how.  He even went and picked out boards from the lumber pile, had his hammer and nails, but couldn't conjure anything that remotely resembles his ideal.  Tears of frustration.  I had him sit at the table with a good book and warm tea.

Eventually, after the first hour or so of attempting to put this soup together, there was a burning sensation in my brain as I contemplated whether or not I would ever finish.  I did finish . . . eventually . . . but zowie, it took a long time.

Wonderful rain

The rain is raining all around,
It falls on field and tree,
It rains on the umbrellas here,
And on the ships at sea.

~ Robert Louis Stevenson

It rained all day today, which is such a welcome event.  I can't even remember the last time it rained.  Maybe July?  The ground is cracked and dry.  The sound and sight of the drizzling sky felt so good.  Familiar.  Cozy.  The robins were in ecstasy hopping all around the yard.

Lil' buckaroos

We went to "Pumpkin Fest" at Squeeze's parents' church on Saturday.

They had a pumpkin patch, straw-bale maze, carnival games, and my favorite -- 

A dress-up box and old-timey pictures for big and small . . . so fun.

All three boys crack me up for different reasons.

Diego is so serious!

Truen's poses are so varied.

And Jamie was so benign and cooperative.

(The third picture is my favorite.)

Last weekend

Last weekend was a bit more tame.  I took time to go on a walk with my family, sit in the sun, and relax a bit.  It has been over a month of intense work on the weekends and it felt very good to slow down.

Nevertheless, I still did some work:

• Chopped and dehydrated 2 large bunches of celery
• Rendered 3 quarts of snowy-white lard
• Canned 17 quarts tomatillo salsa

It is supposed to freeze tomorrow night, so Squeeze pulled in the rest of the tomatillos and green tomatoes last night.  There are still plenty of cruciferious vegetables in the garden to glean from, but anything warm-loving (peppers, tomatoes, okra, squash, melons, etc.) is done for the season.

Jamie says

Mullets are hip again, right?

• "Bop!" = Stop!
• "Maynoes" = Tomatoes
• "Sooz" = Shoes
• "Papo" = Pacifier (mutant offspring of Diego's baby-word "paso")
• "Blankuk" = Blanket
• "Meeoh-Meeoh" = Oatmeal
• "Gampa" = Grandpa
• "Bel-bo" = Belly-button
• "Moom" = Moon
• "Day-go" = Diego
• "Soo-in" = Truen

More results from another three-day weekend

• 10 lbs dried green beans (now fits in 1 quart jar)
• 11 pints pickled sweet peppers
• 10-ish lbs dried green peppers (both pepper jobs were a major time-suck with all the chopping and seed removal)
• 4 jelly jars / 1 pint vanilla-melon jam
• 6 quarts tomato puree
• 5 pints charred chili BBQ sauce
• 8 pints pickled green tomatoes

What I didn't get done . . .

• Another batch of vanilla-melon jam
• Decant/refill fermenting vessels w/ cabbage for sauerkraut
• Apples up the wazoo
• Tomatillos (a huge box filled to the top)
• Green tomatoes

We talked about it this weekend and it is really feels like there is no end in sight.  Honestly, this could go on for another month (especially with all the work left to the weekends).  There are boxes and boxes full of produce waiting for me.  Seriously. 

I would like to try it during the week, but it is prit'near impossible with all the demands of the three little monkeys underfoot.  I just don't know how I would do it.  Things are different this year w/ the combination of age levels and temperaments.  It seems like I am always in the process of negotiating peace, breaking up fights, or comforting one screaming child or another.  (Not to mention feeding, bathing, directing, diapers, clean-up, etc.)

Nevertheless, I shall persevere.  I still feel strong, though my enthusiasm is starting to falter a bit.  And (heh) . . . we're supposed to start our little home school next week.

The fellas right after apple-picking

Diego - 7 years old

Truen - 4 (5 next month)

Jamie - 20 months

Weekend recap

Romanced by tomatoes

Squeeze took Friday off, so I had a full three days to focus on food preservation.

This list blows my mind:

• 7 quarts applesauce
• 1 apple leather
• 4 pints, 8 jelly jars melon preserves
• 2 tomato paste leathers
• 6.5 pints BBQ sauce
• 1.5 jelly jars crab apple jelly
• 8 quarts tomato puree
• 8 quarts sauerkraut

But I did do it, all of it.  The apple leather came from a quart of applesauce that didn't seal.  The one-point-five jelly jars of crab apple jelly is just outrageous; the amount of work that went into those tiny little jars is off the charts.  But goodness . . . is it beautiful (and delicious).  The tomato puree turned out to be a lovely orange from the combination of yellow and red-pink tomatoes.

Diego is obsessed with "chesst" again, so Squeeze spent much of his weekend playing one game of chess after another.  He was also able to get various tasks around the house done and took 95% of the responsibility for the little guys.  Aside from breakfast each day, he made the food, wiped the butts, changed the diapers, broke up the fights, wiped the hands, etc.  They went on a melon hunt Sunday and made an excursion to the rock pile that left the place so quiet I wondered if they had been abducted by aliens.

All this allowed me time to focus on the strategy of what needed tending first and the resulting sequence of events.  Honestly, I am in such a groove this season that it wasn't a taxing experience at all.  I had on my "game face" and was still going strong at 10:00 PM on Sunday night (though I was definitely tired this morning).  Jamie had a tummy ache and needed me particularly on Friday and Saturday, so I did take a number of deep-nuzzle snuggle breaks to refill his tank (which I loved).

Up next weekend: tomatillo salsa and apple products galore.

2012 Garden Tour

East Garden: Early June

The straw is laid down and all supports are in.

Onions are growing in the foreground.

Lettuce is the bright, bushy stuff on the left;

Peas are the tall plants in the background.

East Garden: Mid-June

A couple of weeks later and things are really growing.

I took this picture while a storm was moving in --

thus the pink lighting.

East Garden: Mid-July

Things are way, way up.

Onions will be harvested in a couple of weeks, corn is coming,

and the cabbages are starting to curl inward.

 To think . . .

this delicate little darling becomes

an enormous squash.

 West Garden: Mid-July

The vining plants grow here:
Melons, winter squash, summer squash, pumpkins.

Squeeze gives Truen credit for the idea for this walkway.

Truby was so excited about his "bridge" --

he drew a model of what he wanted, helped Squeeze pick out the planks,

and acted as construction assistant.

All the three of the boys loooooove walking on it.

Our very own grapes --

The birds got the majority of these little beauties.

Better luck next year...?

Mid-July harvesting:

Zucchini, beets, scalloped summer squash, cucumbers

Truen set this up while I was making lunch one afternoon.

Isn't it just darling?

We spent a couple of days protecting it from Jamie and

admiring the color and size differences, until the novelty wore off

and I disassembled it to make room on the table.

It has been flooding tomatoes for the past three weeks --

German Pink, Manyel, Cherokee Purple, Black Plum

(there's a bit of scarlett okra in there as well).

See our beautiful back "steps"?  And that lovely bottom-landing carpet?

Squeeze's dad will be building REAL steps this fall (can't wait).

 Melons, zucchini, & Cinderella pumpkins
from the West Garden --
the boys love the treasure-hunt of picking melons,
Not to mention the succulent, sweet reward.


Diego's vegetable stand --
This is his second year of selling vegetables.
His stand is in the kitchen; doesn't he set it up so beautifully?
While he sells to anyone who visits the house (thanks Mimi!),
his most loyal customers are his Grandmas. ♥
The price?  One "hawk coin" . . . twenty-five cents.

East Garden: September

It looks a bit weedy and upkept by this point.

Cucumbers, corn, onions, and garlic are all done.  Some things are going to seed.  Second seedings of lettuce, radishes, cilantro are looking good, as are the second plantings of green beans and broccoli. 

The first planting of broccoli is putting out, big-time (though the florets are now about the size of your thumb).  Cooking greens are going full bore.  Tomatoes eggplant, okra, and peppers need to be picked every-other-day.

Our little franken-toddler has to be closely monitored these days.  He likes to stomp up to big green tomatoes or little peppers with uber enthusiasm, saying, "Rwwwwiiiiiiiipe!" and then lop them off their vines.  'Tis the season of life and garden.

The weekend tally

• 2 pints watermelon-rind pickles
• 7.5 pints charred chili BBQ sauce
• 9.5 quarts tomato sauce
• 1-2 pints tomato paste drying in the dehydrator (it started out as somewhere around 10 lbs of plum tomatoes . . . wow)
• 8 quarts sauerkraut decanted, fermenting vessels refilled with same amount of fresh cabbage, salt, and caraway seeds
• Went apple-picking and picked . . . uhhhhhh . . . 60 lbs?, 75 lbs? . . . 4 boxes full
• Picked a sack filled with black walnuts to dry (experimenting)

How am I doing this...?  Very simple.  Squeeze keeps the boys under wraps for the weekend (they play alongside him wherever he is working, or "help" him work) while I spend two days from noon to bed-time in the kitchen. 

I am a preserving machine this season, a force to be reckoned with.  I surveyed our jar storage this evening and realized that we might run out of jars (and/or be forced to use the pints when I'd rather use the quarts).  The tomatillo glut hasn't even started yet and I have big plans for mondo amounts of salsa verde.  !!!

This is amazing for two reasons.  First off, I've been semi-embarrassed in the past, wondering why I have been hoarding such massive quantities of canning jars.  It always seemed so excessive.  But this year?  Whoa baby, I'm on fire. 

And that brings me to my second point, which is . . . I am totally Wonder Woman this year.  It is amazing.  I can't believe the amount of food I am preserving!  I assume it is a combination of fabulous output from our garden and the accumulation of skills and experience.  I am so impressed every time I go down in the root cellar.  It already looks amazing.

And last but not least, Squeeze built a sandbox.  (Sorry about that terribly back-lit picture, it was the best I could do at the time.)  We've been talking about it for the past 3-4 years and finally got our act together and decided this was it!  The biggest hurdle has been deciding where it would go.  Squeeze used wood from our huge pile of reclaimed lumber, harnessing the charm of the "rustic" look.  He did a great job.

Last weekend's stats

• 2 pints watermelon-rind pickles
• 4 pints cantaloupe preserves
• 2 quarts dried plum tomatoes
• 11 quarts tomato sauce
• Still in the hopper (i.e. should have been decanted on Sunday): 6 quarts sauerkraut

You can teach an old dog new tricks (me)

Instilling a sense of duty has not come naturally to me as a parent.  I'm all about inspiration and affection, learning to love the world around us, taking time to appreciate "the little things".  But duty?  Not so much.  Duty is "boring".

However, in recent years I have come to realize that duty is a very important part of life.  In it lies the simple building blocks of daily life: respect, patience, perseverance, serving others, care of possessions, maintenance of living spaces, etc.  Without these habits built into life, chaos reigns.  Chaos is worse than boring - it is dreadful.

A habit is "an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary".  Of course we clear our spot when we are done!  X-Y-Z goes back on the shelf after I'm done with it.  And that life-simplifying mantra, "a place for everything and everything in its place". 

Without a doubt, order and cleanliness comes easier to some than others.  Children amplify the need for these life skills, or lack there of, beyond reckoning.  I fall into the second category.  Lack there of.  Doh.

I remember reading encouragement to involve young ones in chores right from the start.  It will often take longer, but it is worth the effort of patience and (sometimes) added work to train them to help.  While I am doing that with Jamie, I never really did with Diego until he was a bit older, perhaps around 3-ish.  Probably because most of the said-chores were not on my radar screen.  The messes seem bigger and more ominous now, but also . . . prior to children, my jobs were to wash the dishes and clean the cat litters.  Squeeze did everything else. 

It has been a slow transition over the years, but I now hold the reigns of household management.  Of course, this also involves cleaning up after three little rascals, but I am floored by the amount of labor that is involved in "just life".  The daily grind.  The endless minutiae of picking up, organizing, cleaning, re-organizing, picking up, cleaning it again, and so on. 

Without daily maintenance, I am toast.  The tsunami-force of the mess monster swallows one whole - mind, spirit and all.  It is like a black-hole of despair.

My recent understanding of all this has initiated a major overhaul this past year.  The boys are becoming more and more responsible in household maintenance.  We all live here, and while I am your mama, I ain't your maid.

It has been a work in progress for several years.  I've spent a goodly amount of time hammering out my own failings . . . developing standards and creating structure in my own daily/weekly routines . . . and while I am not perfect, things have improved drastically.

Through all these inner-workings and sight of tangible results, I've realized that instilling a set of expectations in the daily routine is key.  It used to be the darndest thing to have my boys get dressed every day.  And brushing teeth after breakfast?  Fergettabou'dit.  They hit the ground running for the play table as soon as their breakfast dishes were cleared.

But then it hit me: make it an expectation.  Schedule it in to the routine.  Normalize it into daily reality.  One small example of this is my recent regimentation of "morning chores", which is nothing more than clearing the table, wiping their spot, brushing their teeth, and getting dressed.  But now . . . if they forget, all I need to do is ask sweetly, "What do you need to do next?" and they know exactly what I am talking about.  There is no harassing and the work gets done, in large part because they expect it.

It is embarrassing to know that I am just figuring this out with a seven, four, and one-and-a-half year old, but things change over the years.  Demands and challenges are different, as are the levels of activity and distractedness.  And shoot, I'm an ENFP.  We don't do well with the "trivial drudgery of everyday life".  Heh.

What is best though, is that I've come to realize that I can make ANYTHING into habit.  Whatever portion of the daily grind I need them to take responsibility for . . . I can instill it as habit into their daily routine.  One at a time, slow and steady wins the race, but I can. DO. it.

And that feels very good.

The past is a foreign country

Retronaut: I am beyond intrigued.

People are people are people are people.  No matter when or where. 

I love stuff like this because it helps me get out of the entrapment of feeling like I am (or we are) "the first".  We are pioneering our own lives, yes, from birth to death - gaining the experiences and maturity that comes through living - but it has all been done before, a million times over.

Look into the eyes of some of these people.  I've seen them before.  I've seen them!  They are the faces of all of us.  Ever-changing, always the same.

Preservation blitz

It is the wee hours of the night/morning and I've been in the kitchen for most of the day . . . decanting sauerkraut, jamming and canning 12 cups of concord grapes, canning 9 quarts of tomato sauce.  I didn't get started until mid-afternoon, but crikes . . . I'm bushed. 

Tomorrow I will need to re-fill the Pickl-It jars with a fresh batch of thinly-sliced cabbage n' caraway seeds for 'kraut and quarter plum tomatoes for the dehydrater. 

I really should blanch and freeze kale and collards as well.  They "keep" so much longer out in the garden, but better to get a jump on it vs. waiting until I am totally burnt-out and the plants are half-dead.  I doubt I'll have it in me, though.  Maybe sometime this week.

'Tis the season.

Harvesting & homeschooling

I feel a burning lack of contemplative thought in my life right now.  I don't have time to read, I don't have time to sit and stare, I don't have time for blogging.  It burns.  I sat down to write a contemplative post today, but realized that I don't have the time or ability to hammer my thoughts into a cohesive thesis.  So I shan't.  I just can't.

Our tomato table is full to the brim, waiting for me to slice plum tomatoes for drying.  I hope to have enough big-juicies to make a batch of tomato sauce soon.  Salsa, too.  I de-stemmed 10 lbs of grapes yesterday, concord grapes from our neighbor Walentyne.  They are such a gorgeous dusky purple-blue, my heart leaps whenever I look at them.  The next step is to separate the skins from the pulp.  I am making grape jam, so I will then cook the pulp, strain the seeds, then add the chopped skins back to the greenish-goo, add a sweetener and vioa-la!, jam.

I looked around the house yesterday and remembered, "Oh yes, this is September".  Of course it isn't September yet, but the harvest has started.  Things are getting wild.  I want to keep my perspective this year, to remember that the house might look like a cyclone hit it, but the chaos is only temporary.  It is worth it.

I am also looking toward the reality that we are starting Year 1 . . . first grade . . . of homeschooling this year.  We will start in October.  I feel fairly relaxed about it as I did most of my planning this past spring (with two year of reading and research undergirding it).  We have cultivated our home and lifestyle as a rich learning environment, so even if we haven't officially done "school", our little fellas have been schooled in many life skills and sciences since the very start.  I am also realizing that I am of the "better late than early" variety. 

I will be following the methods and philosophy of the educator Charlotte Mason using Ambleside Online as my training wheels, though I will be using The Story of the World as my history "spine".  I will be very curious to see how everything plays out.  It will involve a lot of reading aloud, which I think we will all enjoy.  I'm not exactly sure how to re-organize our day to make everything work, but I have read enough about homeschooling to know that it might taking several readjustments before things gel.

Other goals include teaching Diego how to read (which I think he is totally ready for, it should be easy) and teaching both boys how to tell time, as they currently measure time by Mr. Bean episode-lengths.  I think I need a morning board, so I can go hard at it with the season, temperature, date, time, etc.  Any suggestions out there...?  For some reason, I can't muster the inner strength to actually make one (though it must be easy).

Olson Extravaganza

Posting a little sooner than last year . . .

My parents & sister left yesterday after a two-week visit.

We spent a week at our place and a week in the Twin Cities.

Lots of time with my sibs, grandparents, great-grands,

and a menagerie of extended Olsons.

'Twas good.

 The usual with Unky Erik

 The extended Olsons --

We had many a night like this.

Laid out flat at the beach --

three days without a nap'll do this to yeh.

My youngest sibs --

Snacking on homemade hummus

after splashing around with the nephews in the lake.

 Watching the koi at Como Park

Examining the fountain coins with Unky Andrew

 Blasting Grandma with the bubble gun --

She's the one that bought it for them! :)

Unky Jayna outright laughing --

Jamie's face was smooshed beyond belief in that mask.

Uncle Andrew & Auntie Brenda --

Keepin' it real with the kiddos.

Playing Go Fish with Grandpa & Great-Grandma

My lovely grandparents

"Up at the cabin"

The boys with their great-grands

and the friendly neighborhood kitty.

The last-minute goodbye photo 

Postus Interruptus

I am supposed to be putting a chicken into the oven to roast; but instead I am snuggling with my littlest guy, still groggy from his nap. 

He wouldn't be awake, except that Truen dropped an aluminum pail right in the front entry while begging me to come outside (as I readied the aforementioned chicken).  The giant reverberating crash that it produced as it hit the ground woke his baby brudder up.

Sheesh.  Go figure.

The last two days have been warm and sunny (and not the heat box we've been living in).  It has been delightful.  The entire house is open and breezy, flooded with fresh air.  It feels good to go outside.  Hearing the birds chirp under the shade of a tree with the breeze on my skin felt like a downright luxury this afternoon, especially after the weeks and weeks of scorching misery.

Ahhhhhh . . .

Jamie is up and running with his brudders, so I'd better get back to my chicken. 

We are finishing a run of two weeks with Squeeze working overtime, up an hour earlier every day and skipping his lunch hour.  It has been a grueling couple of weeks for him.  The poor guy was almost slug-like on the couch last night and eventually crawled upstairs to bed like a beaten dog.

A catch-up list

• Various posts keep running through my head.  The one stuck on repeat most recently would have been titled "Things I Thought I'd Never Hear Myself Say as a Mother", with the headliner of "Please get your face out of my butt".  Yes, I've said that.  More than once.
• But(t).  I'm not in the mood.  I'll just do a list-post to catch up on life.
• Jamie is starting to connect words with concepts.  Like today, when he put his fingers in the bottom of the glass sliding door, then held up his filthy little hand and said, "Doh-dee".  It took me a second for it to register, then I realized that he telling me that his hand was dirty.  The sweet little fella.
• Or yesterday, when we were in the garden and he was nervous around the sprinkler.  He kept on backing away and saying, "Cold! Cold!" whenever it veered in his direction.
• Speaking of veering.  I am actively trying to reprogram my nickname for Schtinky.  The time has come for a change, mostly because I don't want him to get upset about it as he gets older.  Recently I've been calling him "Voosy", which is Squeeze's nickname for him, or have defaulted to my new one: "Tsamie".  He answers to all of them.  Schtinky, Stinky, Jamie, Tsamie, Voos, Voosy.
• Our summer has been very hot and dry.  We've had one real rain in the last two months.  All the grass is brown and we are watering our young trees to keep them going.  Ditto on the gardens.  Squeeze runs the sprinkler almost every morning or night.
• Because of the heat, we are going to have AMAZING melons, squash, eggplant, peppers, okra, etc. this year.  It is looking doubtful for the tomatoes, though.  The plants look phenomenal, but it isn't cooling down enough at night and we are losing blossoms, especially on the big juicies.  No flowers, no fruit.  Frustrating.
• This is definitely the hottest summer we have had here.  Squeeze heard somewhere that these are the warmest temps in Minnesota since 1987.  In the past, we've run our air conditioner maybe once a summer, perhaps for 3-4 days, during a miserable run of hot, humid days; but this summer, the a/c has been on for most of July.  Life would be miserable without it, though I am getting very tired of feeling cooped up.  We have enough of that in the winter months.
• My parents and sister are coming for a visit next week.  They will be at our house for a few days, then we are all heading to the Twin Cities for my grandparents' 60th where we will meet up with another two brothers and a SIL.  One brother and a SIL won't be able to make it, so it won't be a complete reunion, but fun nevertheless.

Back to the old grind.  Nap/Quiet Time is officially over.  Goodbye, silence . . . you carressed my ears and mind, but my jaw still hurts . . .

I love my boys. ♥

The brudders with their great-grands

In Wisconsin, the week before last