Small town speed

The Fairy Queen does not move slowly. She darts and fidgets and lunges and mentally sprints and runs into things at top speed. Patience is not her gig. Once upon a time, a lifetime ago in a really different job that involved interviewing people about themselves, taking copious notes, and then writing about them, she once said to a plodding individual: I can write faster than you can talk.

(Phrodaux: at times he has issues, but spent time at his grandparents' farm; for those who didn't, "Napoleon Dynamite" was a documentary, not fiction, I can put real names to all those people, and them some. Eugene, Loomer and Camille just as teaser, teaser, so at times, just enjoys being with "his peeps")

The farm is a place to slow down, relax, recharge. That's all good, when it's just the FQ and Phrodaux and the beasts. Once in a while, though, we venture out into the surrounding countryside for supplies or amusement or both. That's when it becomes abundantly clear that the Fairy Queen's pace is not particularly suited to rural settings. She is trying, though, to develop a small town speed, with mixed results. A recent weekend provided ample opportunities to practice.

(phrodaux here adding a sidebar: this onetime at the bar where the bartender who we love has since left, and we mostly don't like it nearly as much as when she was not left, 'cause she ruled the place with an iron fist, yet knew what kind of salad dressing we liked, and had a baseball bat for those who misbehaved... where was I... oh yeah, FQ tried to be gregarious, but the object of gregarious was really stinky, and called phrodaux "you sexy fuck" more than she felt comfortable with,  side, side note, calling phrodaux "you sexy fuck" less than six times is apparently acceptable, just so you know, and knowing is half the battle)

(phrodaux commenting on a phrodaux sidebar... I really am a "sexy fuck", just sayin')

Stop 1: Lamb & Wool Festival Parade (minimal patience required). Also, all the pictures will be from this spectacular spectacular, because after the parade the camera went away to allow for full involvement in all errands, interactions, and spiritual quests that came after.

Here's all you need to know about this parade: the color guard came in the middle, not at the beginning and ALL the town's law enforcement vehicles are in the parade somewhere, so no one is blocking roads or directing traffic, so random cars inadvertently joined the parade at several points.

Stop 2: Mexican grocery store for soft bread and queso - Phrodaux was on a torta mission (more patience required).  Why does a tiny store with few customers have a computer system that could run NASA? (Phrodaux here: 1976 NASA, boom chicka wow wow) Why does it take 20 minutes to buy bread, cheese, 6 limes and 2 avocados??? (deep breaths) (phrodaux here, again, boom chicka wow wow)

Tractors! We LOVE tractors. The ones in this parade were OK. For a REAL tractor parade, you have to go to the Great Oregon Steam Up. Go! This summer! Go!

Stop 3: Farm store (a little more patience required, but only in order to restrain self from smacking horrible woman trying to get her kid to do things - like fetchingly hold a tiny chick - just for the photo opp). The staff is great and we leave with the best combinations of things. This time: strawberry plants, a 50 gallon water barrel and asparagus plants.

The official categories for this parade are listed below. When they say "Coarts" I think they must mean "Courts" as in princesses and such or maybe tennis.  Or not. Have I mentioned that small towns present challenges, not least of which is spelling?
Equestrian Units
Motorizd Units
Floats
Other  (Coarts, Bands and Walking Units)

Stop 4: Hardware store (a little more patience required, because the cashier was new and all our old pals who admire Phrodaux's tresses and miss us when we don't come in for 3 weeks were out on the floor, helping customers and teasing each other).

It was a TRANSFORMER! The bucket is UP, then there are powerlines, so the bucket is DOWN, then the bucket is right back UP again.

Stop 5: Grocery store (A LOT MORE patience required, because the people who have obviously NEVER shopped before stalked us through the whole place. And also, what is with the human instinct to HALT IN DOORWAYS and OTHER NARROW PASSAGES???) (phrod: why is this? it seems universal, everywhere, people stop in pinch points to have extended banal conversations, is it an earthquake survival thing? if so wouldn't it be offset by the "you are blocking the passages of non-earthquake survival people, so I must kill you evolution thang?)

This photo really does go with the next photo. Look closely at door #2.

The first time we came to the Lamb and Wool Festival, we were innocent newbies. High and low, we  looked for the lambs. Finally, we asked at the hardware store: Where are all the lambs? Nice hardware man said, On the grill. Oh. Well then. We thought about that for a while and then we realized: If you raise sheep, you only need so many boys. So, unlucky boys, it's the grill for you.

Stop 6: Gas station (Tons of patience required, gladly given. No one should be 71 years old, working 4 pumps solo, while customers yell and curse and no help is coming). Filled the gas cans and fled the scene, desperate to get back to the farm, the pups, the meadow, the space, the mower.

(Phrodaux: he really is a nice man, but maybe a bit taxed by the task of pumping gas, everyone should be nice to him, especially since all the teenagers who didn't excel, but did an ok job at pumping gas, but really shouldn't, have quit, and the cow who manages the place thinks it is a good idea to only have one person on the payroll who happens to be a nice man, but maybe peaked at just below pumping gas at 71 years old, but is rather nice but he's the ONLY F-ING EMPLOYEE FOR 8 PUMPS WITH HORRIBLE PEOPLE YELLING AT HIM FOR ONLY DOING HIS BEST!?!??!?!

But to the nice people just before us who tried to pay the $8.87 with a $10 bill and were told that he didn't have the $0.13 change and then the nice people told him to keep the $0.13 and the other dollar, you get karma points and nice things said about you on our random blog, which if you knew, NEVER HAPPENS! good on you, we love you a bit.)

Today's theme (about a week later) is that we don't so much like people. There's us and our family by gene sequence and our family by choice but after that WHATEVER. Except those people Phrodaux was ranting about a couple paragraphs above. We like you. We might even love you. Come by the farm. We'll take you to a really lame parade. 

this one ain't ripe yet...

...dems don't bite, dems pets...

(dems don't bite...)

{FQ sidebar: THAT is another story altogether, involving a mini van, a cross-country trip, E, and the state of Tennessee.}

{FQ channeling Phrodaux: That is also another story of HIS altogether, which may or may not be told here. WWGGPS besides "enough is enough and too much is shitty"}

This is one of those "both of us" posts, or another way of putting it is "Phrodaux is just typing some crap down and the Fairy Queen will perdy it up"

Let's start, shall we? begin.

(one is not quite ripe, can you tell?)

One has (kinda) figured out what goes where and how to get mommy and daddy to dance like puppets on strings. The other still can get mommy and daddy to dance like puppets on strings, but maybe less intentional.

(for those keeping score the green one is not quite ripe)

Is there any other display of happy springtime that outshines new plant growth than a small white (green) dog ecstatically rolling on his back sun warming his wiggly belly? yes. there is . A small white (green) dog ecstatically rolling on his back sun warming his wiggly belly on freshly mown grass, thus turning said ecstatically rolling small white (green) dog slowly from an ecstatically white upturned wiggly dog into a ecstatically green upturned wiggly dog.

Mo is ten months old, slightly green, and smells of nori. Nubie is 10 months and 10 years old, mostly white, and smells of sweet nice dog (but let's let the definition of sweet nice dog remain fluid). Any predictions for the trouble they will get into this summer? Or, better yet, at "beginner" dog obedience class, which starts in one week?

Slow gifts

Have you ever spent MONTHS trying to give a gift? I don't mean the package that never gets to the post office or the "I'll know it when I see it" item that is never quite found. I mean the sheer logistics of presenting a person - say, Phrodaux - with a particular gift.

Well. Here is my completely not recent or timely or urgent in any way story.

A couple of years back, in the month of September, Phrodaux and I checked out this groovy place: Beam & Anchor. You should too. Go there now. This post will still be here when you get back.

Anyway, just inside the door was the chair. A lovingly and painstakingly restored antique dentist's chair. Round base, wooden arms, the little headrest thingy, and buttery new leather on the seat and back and twitchy foot parts. Now dentist chairs are something the Fairy Queen can take or leave. Not super fond of being at the dentist, don't really want to sit in their chairs, etc. But Phrodaux was instantly smitten. I think I need it was what he kept saying.

(phrodaux here: I don't love the dentist, I'm not Jack Nicholson or Steve Martin, look it up.)

I thought I might save all pics until the end, but that just seemed mean. Also, this post is so long and random, you might give up. So here! Here it is! What this whole endless story is about!

See those blankets? They come up in Step 3.

The FQ can be cagey, sometimes. She knows when to play her role (den mother and team killjoy): No, really, what would you do with it? Where would it go? There's no space for it. Which in this case was just a way to buy some time. Her REAL internal monologue was going something like this:

• Perfect gift for impossible to find perfect gifts for Phrodaux. 
• How can I get it? 
• And how can I keep it a secret? 
• It's not like I can put it under the daybed in the library where all the other secret prezzies hide out with the dust bunnies and abandoned dog toys. 
• When? Where? How????

(phrodaux back here: note to self, don't look under the daybed in the library, phrodaux don't play that way, likes gifts to be a suprize, thinks dust bunnies deserve their privacy being bunnies and all)

Well. Things transpired, slowly.

Step 1: Buy the chair. I called the lovely Beam & Anchor people, who agreed to sell it to me over the phone. I suspect they put a cunning little SOLD tag on it and only wish I'd seen it. When we buy art, I 99% love the art and 1% love knowing that the SOLD tag means the piece is eventually coming home with me. Does that make me a small, acquisitive person? Whatever. We have some cool art.

(phrodaux blah, blah, we have a lot of cool art, not cable or other things that people think are essential)

Step 2: Get the chair. This happened a full month later, due to a shiny confluence of events. There is a day in October when kids get the day off due to something called "Statewide Inservice Day." My first, brutal, cry every day year of teaching, I asked my principal what I was supposed to do. She said, "Take a class if you want to, otherwise stay home and soak your feet." Essentially, the ambitious among us take a class and everybody else tries to get caught up. I did take a class once, through the brilliant Wordstock machine, with Jeff Anderson, and if you read one teacherly thing this year it should be Mechanically Inclined but lord almighty how I have digressed. Ahem. This was not a take a class year. This was a corner your lovely father, the Wood Master, along with his ancient truck, and make a plan to PICK UP THE CHAIR.

Step 2.5: Actually pick up the chair. Let's boil this one down to: a) the chair is badass heavy; b) you can't really lift it because of the hydraulic thingamajigs that once made it go up and down; c) it took 3 nice guys who are somehow affiliated with Beam & Anchor, plus their lift truck, to get it into the Wood Master's truck.

Step 3: Store the #$*)#*$(#* chair until Christmas, the occasion for which this gift is intended. Luckily for me, the Wood Master wasn't driving the ancient truck much in those days, so the chair stayed safely in the back, under the canopy plus blankets and tarps and such to ward off rain, mildew, and evil spirits.

Step 4: Give the gift. Yay, much rejoicing. Was Phrodaux surprised? I don't know. Ask him. I can never tell.

(phrodaux: yep)

Step 5: Get the $#*#$(&$(#*&$(*#&$(*#&$(*&# chair into our actual house. In the week between Xmas and New Year's that year, we actually had a little dinner party. At some point I thought: OK, the Wood Master can drive over and somehow the guests can all get together and unload the chair. And then I woke from my dream of youth and realized we're all old and have bad backs. New plan required.

(phro: one had recently had back surgery and been confined to bed for more than an insignificant time, actually the youngest of the group, crap. I remember when we bought our first color tv.)

Step 5.5: Hire movers to transfer the chair from the Wood Master's truck (parked in our driveway) into our living room. They are young and have insurance. Done.

Step 6: Enjoy gorgeous, lovely, perfect chair.

(phr: yep, that is my I'm talking on the phone spot)

Notice that cute little round rug?? It pulls it all together, right?

Step 7: Realize (Phrodaux) that what's missing is a small table next to the chair. A table that is so small it cannot become a beacon for clutter, like every other surface in our house. No, a table that can hold exactly one bottle of beer, to be sipped while talking on the phone, which is what the chair has proved perfect for. Can such a table be purchased? No! It must be created by Phrodaux himself. And of course it will have a chicken leg/foot.

Notice the fluffy things stuffed under the chair? Mo thinks it's a good place to wedge tennis balls, then cry and bark about his sad, sad life in which the balls just keep getting stuck.

Ignore the stuffing! Look at the table!

Chicken Foot!

(Ph: yep, feet be chicken feet, and yes it is possible to have a table that doesn't get covered with projects/paper/crap/entrails of your enimies, oops, did I say that, I meant "donuts", yah, donuts)

The morals of this story are: a) Find a way to give your true love what he/she wants. It's worth it; b) Some gifts take a long time, but that's OK; and c) You never know, your house might just need a dentist's chair. Confession: Phrodaux is not the only one who sits on it when talking on the phone.

(P: my lovely wife loves and knows me, neiner neiner, or you can thank the dark gods that you all don't have to because the fairy queen does)

will Phrodaux eat it? or dancing with the scars...

So there is a rule, something about going to the grocery store only when you are really hungry and a little drunk...

... or is it "I before e except after Ryan Seacrest" but then why would I be going before Ryan Seacrest? or better, why does it explicitly need to be stated that I should go before him, seems a given.

 (I present you Ryan Seacrest ladies and gentlemen... lock up your...
I don't know what... fudgesicles?)

what was I talking about?

The Fairy Queen and I (before E) went to "the big Asian grocery store". We were lamenting the fact we can find most of the stuff at non-Asian "normal" grocery stores now a days. Kinda makes things seem less special. Though, we did find a few things that are not of the "normal grocery" store fare.

we got bean paste cookies shaped like fish, didn't taste like fish [unlike the fish shaped licorice that Phrodaux (me, note nested parentheses) purchased in the Netherlands, but that is another story, involving fishy tasting licorice that just happened to be fish shaped, I may have ruined the ending. SPOILERS! oops, sorry.]

We bought some fish sauce (that had a baby on the label, but oddly didn't taste like babies).

...and some strange duck eggs. They were packed in Styrofoam, and were shipped over from Korea (I think, someplace across the big blue angry sea) and are an alarming shade of blackish/greenish.


Fairy Queen thinks buying was a bad idea, and eating them a worse idea.

 (tasted a little like cheese, but in a good way)

Phrodaux on the other hand thinks "weird, I've never had duck eggs that come from Korea packed in Styrofoam that are an alarming shade of black/green. I should eat one/them."

This also might be in the same category as the FQ said that she has never had stitches and Phrodaux having had stitches quite a few times, but not as often as he likely should have had stitches {including the time he was stabbed by a robot, but then it was a stabbing robot, but that is another story, that doesn't involve licorice or fishy tasting, or fishy tasting licorice, but does involve weird stuffed animals [real animals (though fake stuffing)] in a home window diorama}.

{FQ sidebar: I HAVE had stitches, but only once and have a cute little scar to show for myself. But there is no contest here: Phrodaux does all the death-defying moves (falling from a tree onto a barbed wire fence? Yes, that's another story) and I just get bruises. A couple on my knee right now are about the shade of that nasty egg he's going to eat.}

eggs.

We've had duck eggs before, those were given to us at one of the local bars down the valley, apparently there is a farm that raises ducks to be shot at (huh?) they raise them, and generally the first time that they get to fly "free" there is a "sportsman" standing behind the box to change the nice orderly duck parts into so much chaos thus increasing the overall entropy of the universe and moving us all one step closer to the entropy death of said universe.

where was I?

Ducks!

This one time when I was in junior high school, I was going to a Shakespeare play in Ashland and had to rescue a bunch of baby ducks that fell down a storm drain, first we had to get the cop car off the grate so we could move it. Then I went down and saved the baby ducks. Made the newspaper and everything...

... and... Ryan Seacrest! ta-da!

The first rule of kimchi fight club...

Is never talk (blog) about kimchi fight club.

(how did all those people end up showing up at fight club if nobody ever talked about fight club?)

Phrodaux may have had a few "days" this last week. It started with getting a thing cut off my arm (I'm not saying it was my unborn twin brother, but I'm the one with the beard, and if I learned anything from Star Trek, something something Spock with a goatee, something something, I didn't learn from Star Trek, except that god doesn't need a starship, something something, green chicks).

what was I talking about?

So, now thing free, and a Frankenstein's monster like zipper around about a third of my wrist.

 (this is not my actual hand, mine has more colors, and less anger, fire good.)

Then there was the kimchi... the.kimchi.....the..kimchi......the...kimchi.......

Thursday night is Phrodaux makes oven fries (sweet potato and yellow potatoes, recipe to follow) and one of two kinds of cheese sandwiches (eggy or regular, recipe to follow) or salmon burgers (recipe... blah, blah, blah) or veggie sausages (we just buy these). Now I may have mentioned something about kimchi, some of the things that go on burgers or sausage can be pickled mango from the Indian grocery store, mayo, fancy brown mustard, FQ likes catsup (Phrodaux prefers ketchup), pickles (of the cucumber variety, dill, never sweet, ick), and... wait for it... homemade kimchi.

Apparently when you make kimchi (have I mentioned the kimchi?) it keeps venting as it keeps fermenting, but then once done it goes into the fridge.

So, wanting kimchi on my sausage (shut up, your mom wants kimchi on her sausage... I don't know, shut up). I grabbed the jar from the cold and in a very manly way, failed to open the jar (gas may have escaped, but I blame the kimchi). I think my grip may have been compromised by having frankenhand. Tools! tools solve things! I got the pipe wrench.

(this would be the "after" picture)

There were some contortions, which ended up with the Fairy Queen with the wrench while I grasped and twisted. The good news-the jar was opened! the bad news was it was not the expected and traditional "top of jar" location. This was more the middle of the jar. Apparently it is possible to untwist a mason jar roughly in the middle.

Then drama ensued...

long story, even longer, I did not get kimchi on my sausage. I did taste it. It took like 2 months to make, I had to. Oddly enough it tasted like cabbage and broken glass.

(Fairy Queen will have a sidebar here, I'm pah-seyekick)

{Tiny FQ Sidebar, she is so predictable. I love this story because usually I am the dangerous hazard. Nice to be the responsible level-headed one for once. Then again, I am not kimchi's puppet.} 

There was the search for bandaids, the hold the rag on it, the crime scene looking kitchen that FQ was kind enough to clean up (this might have been a self preservation thing on her part as there are only so many places for bandages on Phrodaux and I was running out of said places) chalk outlines can be so slimming.

{FQ Sidebar: Notice in the after picture above that two bandaids are already in place amongst the minor bloody bits. So it's after as in AFTER the kitchen exploded into blood, glass, and kimchi stink which, by the way, smells like dead bodies, but also after the major flesh wounds were dealt with. Once Phrodaux tried to eat broken glass just to taste his )#$*(#$*& kimchi, it was time to use the teacher voice to say: "You. Go sit down. Do not move. Dinner will be brought to you. Do not touch anything."}

So in summary, Phrodaux did not set himself on fire this week! Good news!

Spring break projects

A week at the farm and man, we made a lot of stuff. Messes, mostly, but some edibles, some drinkables, some flammables and stinkables (I'm looking at you, Phrodaux's kimchi).

How can people eat something that smells like a dead body???

Also, discoveries were made. Exhibit A: Mo discovers DEER. Exhibit B: Phrodaux & FQ discover that unlike the late great Odin and the currently great Anubis, Mo cares not one bit about pleasing us, and not much about food. The call of "Treat" would send Nubie sprinting a mile over hot coals. Mo just keeps pursuing creatures he will never ever catch, while all the humans in range run after him, yelling, calling, occasionally falling. Good times, in a low-rent circus kind of way. We may need the military school equivalent of puppy class.

Another discovery, a much more pleasant one. The cookbook Jerusalem by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi is mind-blowingly amazing. The recipes seem complex but are completely manageable, even in my packed to the brim/no counter space farm kitchen. The seafood stew even looked like the picture (go get the book & compare!). Oops, we forgot the Pernod at home and had to use Absinthe. So, great stew AND green fairy dreams.

Fennel + clams, mussels, halibut, shrimp, mmmmm.

The spice cookies were a breeze, and contained all possible good flavors: spices, chocolate, currants, lemon, crystallized ginger.

Best of all, though, was the chocolate krantz cake. Yes, it takes two days and the recipe covers four pages (2 of them photographs of the whole assembly procedure). No, I have no photos - too caught up in the epic process of this thing. But go to Google and search for images of jerusalem cookbook chocolate krantz cake. Yes yes yes it looks like that and it is the best thing I've baked in a long time.

I'm sure there were non-food projects, hmm. Oh, how about this one:

Ugly pink light fixture that makes everything look drab OUT, new schmancy one from Schoolhouse Electric in. We love that place for a thousand reasons: products, aesthetics, nice people, gorgeous old building, fantastic coffee stand. But most of all, we know a secret that they apparently do not yet know. They sometimes put items out on the floor marked Not For Sale. Pish posh, Phrodaux & the Fairy Queen know that eventually they will sell these items, to us. First case in point: Perfect cabinet for our gorgeous bathroom (the after post).

Second case in point: Phrodaux's speed bag, which I keep calling the boxing thing. The guest bedroom is getting a weird vibe, but whatever. You can still come stay with us. And if you feel aggressive, well, there you go. The thing about those boxing gloves...I gave those to Phrodaux for xmas, because I KNEW (he knew, we all knew, but Schoolhouse Electric didn't yet know) that the speed bag would soon be for sale. Oh, when will they listen to us? That bright red mid-century modern credenza thing? MINE. I see your NOT FOR SALE tag and say to you: Read the blog, silly. I know how this turns out.

Ahem. This is way too long and I haven't gotten to the gin yet, or the precarious transport of a 30' pine log through brushy terrain via one ancient riding mower, two trailers, two humans, and sheer cussedness. Or the Buena Vista ferry or the daffodil festival or the new raised beds or the brontosaurus. We pack it in, people. AND nap everyday.

Back to "work" tomorrow, sigh. But more plans are afoot. Check back for news of a pinball machine, a steel bottle tree, and what we eventually put in those new raised beds. Thoughts? Nominations? How patient do you feel, because I am thinking asparagus.

Spring comes to the farm

The story of how we found the farm is a long and circuitous one, possibly requiring a flow chart and definitely requiring a post of its own. This story starts with when we saw it for the first time. It was early January, the recovery weekend between time in Mexico (where we talked of nothing but the mysterious, unseen property) and going back to work. It was not raining.

We followed google directions and drove and drove and drove, up and down and round and round. Then suddenly, there we were, the house from the picture, on its little rise, with gigantic oaks looming behind it. We were early, so drove the loop while waiting for our contacts to arrive. That makes us all sound like CIA operatives but really it's just that the connections are part of the complicated story that belongs in another post.

Eventually we came back, met up with L & C, took the tour, found our heads not just exploding but expanding with possibility and potential and risk and longing.

We came back several times in January and February. Not once was it raining. The next time we brought Builder D of dragon fame, to help us figure out if the house was a tearer-downer or a fixer-upper (option b, duh). The creek was still churning and the oaks were still casting long shadows.

The next time we brought M and a picnic, enjoyed out in the meadow in the cold February sun. Bulbs were coming up but they were not foremost on our minds. Really, I think we were saying to our friends, to our dogs, to ourselves:  Is this right? Can you see us here? Can you see you, with us, here?

Some time in late February, we met with the sellers, all five of them. We enjoyed coffee and pastry (they brought some, we brought some) outside in the cool sunshine next to the snow drops. (It did not rain) Terms were discussed. Numbers were floated. Fears (ours) were released and all the way home we tried to talk ourselves out of this very large step: second house, debt, etc. etc. etc.

Calmer heads prevailed (ours, friends' - especially Fab Twin M, whose "Hi HOMEOWNERS voice mail left our first weekend in residence I resave every month). We own the farm. It is our land of dreamy dreams, our safe place and retreat. Our life goal now is to get there, full time. Self-sufficiency commune is the phrase we've been using.

But I have lost my thread. SPRING. The thing is, after that late February meeting to negotiate the tedious process of purchase, we DID NOT GO THERE AGAIN until Memorial Day. March, April, May: it was all contract/lawyer/title company/panic attacks. We missed spring. We had no idea.

This weekend, Spring arrived. She might as well have sent an engraved announcement or paid a sky writer. It's not just the daffodils, though they are a huge part of it. We've planted 300+ every fall, in addition to all the ones planted by Mrs. EF in the 50 years she lived there.

 

It's also the rain (I believe Phrodaux has mentioned, NEVER say "Can it rain any harder?" because the answer is ALWAYS yes, yes it can) and the water everywhere.

Basketball soccer is best played in 3 inches of standing water!

It's the way our gentle wading/swimming creek becomes a ferocious torrent.

It's the new growth on everything: roses, currants, peach tree, moss. 

It's frog songs (we think the lyrics are will you be my girlfriend) and salamander love.

But most of all it is something that cannot be photographed. It is a Saturday night, at the end of a two-week run of nasty flu at our house(s) and the end of a long, cold, irritating winter. It is stepping outside to check the slow-roasted salmon on chickpeas and mustard greens, smoking away on the grill, and realizing many things at once:
1. Better. I am BETTER.
2. It is 8:30 at night and still 60 degrees.
3. It's a warm wind blowing around. I quit hunching against the cold and stand up straight.
4. Spring came to the farm, and we were there to see it.

Cooking adventures, valentine's edition

Welcome back.

(you should be playing music in the background, maybe some smooth jazz, or nerdcore, you choose)

In this edition of "Phrodaux and the Fairy Queen's adventures in foods" we bring you this weekend's adventures (well, a weekend)... pickled lemons, both the quick version, and the version that will either be really yummy in 5 weeks, or maybe make us wish we had another bathroom and wonder when was the last time we ate corn (that would be late last summer).

(and why is it still an entire ear?)

There was also pita bread and harissa to be made. And oatmeal bread and hummus and faux mole (not faux like Krab with a "K", wouldn't it taste like faux chicken or rat? but the Mexican chocolate/many many spice sauce).

We were down at the farm this last weekend (again, a weekend, as this post has sat and cured like oh so much lemon pickle/potential lower intestine cleanser)... the weather... the weather... (you should read that in the voice of Brando from "Apocalypse Now.")

We've learned never, ever, to say "it can't possibly rain any harder", well, yah, it was raining (to be honest, I've seen it rain harder), but the wind. This was after "the snow."

Very large "branches" of oaks came down. When I say "branches" it is in quotes as those "branches" were ~15 inches in diameter and ~40 feet long. As in other "branch" falls (tree size branches), the gods of the trees and little green houses have been smiling on us. They tend to fall in such a way that they just miss the house. A previous fall fell just around the corner of the house, a big branch on either side, and the only damage was a 10 ft long/4 inch in diameter one that pierced the gutter. Considering that it could have easily pierced the roof, chalk up as "win."

This time they missed the house and the only damage was to an old barb wire fence, and as luck would have it, it landed on a portion that had already been damaged, so a splice was there already that just needed to be respliceded.

Food, that was what this was about, right, shiny object, hey look a duck...

Food.

(secret, it is not better than frying)

Last summer (mostly FQ, but as the little girl says "and Ah he-elped")  it was overcoming the fear of botulism canning. These days, FQ makes yoghurt every week, we make our own granola. This summer we are going to pickle (please, no Portlandia jokes).

There is some theme here, it may be "make ducks while the weather sucks", or something about straw, or it may be It's Phrodaux has the attention span of... I don't know, maybe a duck?

Food.

Pickled lemons, here is the jist of the recipe off the top of my head for the long game version.

Jar with lid- big enough to hold all of this stuff, though if like me, not as big as you think, size doesn't matter, it is what you do with it, at least that is what I've been told. Should be clean, once clean don't play with it too much (still talking about the jar, you may be a bad person)


6 lemons.
6 more lemons (for juice) but later.

can substitute 12 lemons, but you need to hold back half for juice.

6 tablespoons of Salt.
red chile
2 twigs of rosemary (if outside of Liberia, Myanmar, or USA! USA! USA! use 3.2 twigs)

Cut the 6 non-juice lemons or the 1/2 of 12 lemons down the middle, longitudinally almost all the way through, about 3/4 inch (2 cm-ish) before all the way through. Cut so it is an X, if you did cut all the way through (don't) you would quarter the lemon suitable for garnishing a nice glass of ice tea or a lobster, but you didn't cut all the way, so nuts to the ice tea and lobster.

Take the lemons (or lemon, if doing this one at a time, which makes sense unless you are the multi-armed Hindu goddess Kali, but then if you were the multi-armed Hindu goddess Kali, you would likely have better things to do than make lemon pickle and read the random crap that Phrodaux writes, being a goddess and all) and "stuff" with 1 tablespoon of salt in the "x" (stuff it, stuff it like you mean it, dirty, dirty girl/boy/Hindu goddess).

 

( This would be about the time that you discover all the little cuts and scrapes on your hand.)

Cram those into the clean jar that you finished playing with. Cram them. Cram them in the jar. Don't smoosh, just pack them in. Close the jar and put someplace dark and cool, like Ray Charles.

(this is an action shot of lemons in a jar, please contain your excitement, whoop.)

 

Go do something useful for at least a week.

But you say "Phrodaux, what should I do that is useful for an entire week". To which I respond. A) I said at least a week, you should pay more attention, B) maybe take attention classes or C) clown school.

Now you are back at least a week later. Covered in shame and clown makeup.

Add the rosemary and the red chile to the jar (after removing the lid).

Now you can smoosh, smoosh them all down so they are tightly packed. Get as much juice as you can out of lemons, I used a beer bottle, but then I use a beer bottle for most things. The difference was that this one was clean(ish). Smoosh like you've never smoosheded before.

{FQ sidebar: For once the beer bottle was MY idea.}

Add the juice of the newly purchased because the ones you bought two weeks ago are now more fuzzy avocado looking things than lemon, lemons. Try to get all the lemons/chile/metric rosemary down under the liquid. Add a thin layer of olive oil to cover the liquid (this keeps the evil spirits and mimes away).

Then put the jar back with Ray Charles for at least 4 weeks.

 

(this is pre-Ray Charles)

Back to clown school for some sort of advance clown school degree, maybe deeper explorations of quantum tunnelling involving banana cream pie. Or you can watch the entire run of "B.J. and the Bear", there were like 3 seasons, 48 episodes, about an hour each, so you have time...

(nothin' says lovin', like a chimp in a diaper)

There you go. At least 4 weeks later (at least, please, longer the better I'ms told) you either have yummy, yummy lemon pickles that go great with fish or hummus (Fairy Queen is noodling with the idea of a savoury sorbet), or a jar of weird goo and horrible memories of clown school and a monkey. Either way, you win.

...unless you're the guy who changes the monkey's corn filled diaper.

a thousand words...

So phrodaux is not generally  a word guy. I'm what you would call "visual". I work (well I am paid) to make images, kinda like a photographer, but without the the "photograph" part. So, then just "er", but there is a dark padded room in the basement.

There was a time,  back in the pre-intertube part of time, before most folks that we would call "alive" were pink wiggly bits, that Phrodaux was what would be classified as "without sight" or blind, or "that stumbly guy that keeps bumpting into things." A long story, but no, not gonna go into it now, maybe later... your mom. It was the beginning of my erste senior high school year. It lasted for a few weeks, not really clear to me, see this post.

(if you don't see the above image, hit refresh, then try asking nicely, then send me a dollar and I'll explain it to you)

I don't really have memories of that time. I have memories of people telling me about things that occurred then, but not really my memories.

There was something about poker chips, but to tell the truth, not a clue. The above image pretty much sums up those several weeks.

I do remember that my folks decided that cleaning the carpets, which involved rearranging all the furniture while I was blind was a good idea (bump, crap, bump, stumble, crap, f-it love boat is nothing but reruns and I am blind, crap.)

Phrodaux found picture

so, move forward, a few years (well, more like a few decades). And your humble (asshole) author notices something. Fairy Queen, the word girl seems to trend toward "our pix, ones that we thought were worth taking" then words to fit our pix. So she sees pictures, my assumption, then writes purdy words to fit, while Asshole (Phrodaux) comes up with a bunch of random words (notice he doesn't say punctuation or capitals) then trolls the web to find pictures that fit. (See above sheep with bucket head, really, why does this picture exist? other than for me to use as an example?)

does that make sense?

 FQ picture

(Mo has a certain design sense when it comes to the living room, I think the word is kinetic)

so, now that you are yelling at the computer/me "GET TO THE FRIGGING POINT! I SENT YOU A DOLLAR ALREADY!!!!"

it seems odd, at least to me that I'm doing words then  finding pictures, where FQ is doing the opposite? Back in the before times, I did some sculpture looking stuff. I never named the pieces until they were hanging in the gallery. Then if they came down, and went up again, they got new names (mostly because I didn't remember what the names were before).?

But now, words then pictures? Shouldn't I be the picture guy then put some random monosyllabic wordish thing to justify my pix? and shouldn't FQ be doing mostly wordly things with the occasional picture to pacify the unwashed masses (or the more than often unwashed Phrodaux?)

hurmph.
 

snow day!

So, snow. Where Phrodaux and Fairy Queen live, snow is a rare commodity. Last storm with noticeable snow was what, 2009? 2008? This is not a place with a ton of snow plows, not a region where we salt the roads, not the land of adept bad weather drivers. In the midst of the SNOWMAGEDDON weather reports there will always be some beleaguered city official, in hour 29 of his/her shift, pleading into the camera: If you don't have to drive, please stay home. 

Well. Until this morning, the forecast said super cold Thursday/Friday, maybe a little snow on Saturday. It started snowing at 10 or so Thursday morning and didn't stop until after 6. Somewhere in there, Mo met snow:

Yes, it is puppy crack. Nubie is not amused, completely forgetting his own puppy runs around Odin back in the day.

But I digress. Let's work through this day.
Exhibit A: Class Meeting, 9:15 a.m. FQ: Yes, it might snow. No, we won't go home early. We NEVER leave school early. It's too complicated to get everyone home. 

Exhibit B: Literacy, 10:00 a.m. Teacher! It's snowing! Yes, it is. And yet we have work to do. Do it.

Exhibit C: Break, 11:05 a.m. Fairy Queen buzz-kills some random nine-year-olds trying to make snow angels out of the dusting on the concrete. Quit it. You'll be wet all day. We have work to do.

Exhibit D: FQ TEACHES MATH DESPITE SNOW. Teaches the #$#($*&( Distributive Property of Multiplication (look it up) despite snow. We are getting work done. On the way to lunch, the grapevine says we're going home 2 hours early. What? What the what? We NEVER go home early.

And yet, today, we did.

On the road at 1:40, FQ curses other drivers who think big trucks make them invincible, blesses her beloved Subaru, and says many prayers to get home safely. Which she does. To find a house full of Phrodaux and cracked-up puppies and resigned Nubies and time.

But wait a minute, there was going to be something in here about shoes.

For some reason the FQ chose today to attempt to dress like a grown up. Thrift store fancy pants, Nordstrom Rack fancy sweater, shoes without laces.

NOT snowy drive home clothes. One quick change in the bathroom later, she was more ready, with jeans + these:

Better, but not as good as these, which she forgot she owned until hours later:

Luckily, these beauties were unearthed in time for PH's & my epic trek through the blizzard to the cruddy grocery store nearby for snow day supplies. Because of course, my friends, there are rules for snow days! Didn't you know? There are rules for everything.

Rule 1: Sleep in. Wake up when your alarm is supposed to go off, check the time, go back to sleep. Extra credit for the smug look on your face.

Rule 2: Drink extra coffee.

Rule 3: Frolic with dogs. Mo is onboard with this one.

Rule 4: Bake. It makes the house smell nice. {Note to self: Neither 7-11 nor the Super Mercado carry butter or plain yogurt, you have to walk the mile to the actual though lousy grocery store}

Rule 5: Cook something complicated. Come on, it's not like you're going anywhere. Really. You're not leaving the house for a fancy-pants meal or even take out because that nice person on TV said Please don't drive and it's too scary anyway. And also, it's 19 degrees out. No pad thai to go is worth 19 degrees.

Rule 6: Take a nap. Maybe two. Remember, you're not going anywhere. Pajamas all day...hmm. Maybe.

Well, pretties, time to get this snow interlude started. Stay warm and keep your paws dry.