Dairy Daze...and Now Beyond

Reflecting back upon my mother's kitchen, I vaguely remember that she had a little wooden spice rack mounted on the wall. It had maybe 3-4 shelves, 2 or 3 of which were filled with odds and ends; maybe some food coloring, a bottle of vanilla extract, and maybe 3 or 4 other flavorings, a salt and pepper shaker set or two, and then a few spices; salt, pepper, and honestly I cannot remember what else. She seasoned most every dish with garlic salt. My father thought black pepper was a heinous evil, on par with white bread, baking soda and baking powder. (Hence she hid those last 2 items in the cupboard-white bread was not allowed into the house at all-along with any other white flour products, like soda/soup crackers...etc.) I had not had my own kitchen long (starting only a little over 6-7 years ago, a bit before I married) that I realized I was NOT like my mother. I love exotic spices. I am not into hot spices, but just exotic spices. It probably began back in Portland with my first ...

Ellen loves to copy mommy; as is typical with children. I let her play around with my makeup on occasion. This is a shot from awhile back of how artistic she can be on her face. My mother has a photo of me when I was about this age. I had found my way into her dresser drawer where she'd stored her old makeup. I had been much more liberal that Ellen was in my artistic endeavors on my face. I wish I had a copy of that picture to post in comparison. On Tuesday evening Ellen and I made cookies. There was this moment that totally unnerved me; not really in a bad way, but just in a weird way. Ellen was helping mix the eggs into the batter when I just glanced down at her and got this weird impression that she was me as I was when I was a child; that I was working with much younger self. Ellen occasionally has certain expressions that for a fleeting moment makes her look like a photo of myself at her age had come to life and stepped out from the pages of my photo album. At times he...

Ellen and I planted over 50 tomato seeds today. They came in those packs of 20 little white pelleted seeds in each, but really there are closer to 20 pelleted seeds in each pack. I like using the pelleted seeds; Ellen can pick them up and plant the in the little holes I've pushed in the soil. She had a fine old time poking seeds into the holes, covering them up and, later on, watering them. Several hours later she came back in the house, inspected our containers and wondered why there weren't any tomatoes growing yet. Time means little when you are 4 years old. Last year I bought several different kinds of peat pots. This year I am not going to waste my money. I just used empy containers, like sour cream tubs, yogurt cups etc. I am also going to try making my own little pots from newspaper. Seems easy enough.

Argh! I sure do neglect my blog lately. Sorry blog and blog readers. Along in here, somewhere between my last blog post and this one, Ellen celebrated her 4th birthday. Above is a picture of her and the cake I made for her; Stinkerbelle's castle. If you don't know who Stinkerbelle is, then you really need to do some research on kid's animated characters. Ha ha. At any rate, it's not the best castle cake I have seen...and they have plenty of examples online, but Ellen was happy with it. Today Ellen had her 4 year well child check up. She did great. She's 41 and 3/4 inches tall and 46 pounds. Doc said Ellen may or may not have an umbilical hernia; we'd have to go to a specialist and have him look at it. She said it might just be an outie. We will continue to pray that it will heal over. Here on the dairy we have had a rush of calves. At the moment I am bottle feeding 6 heifer calves. We actually have had 4 bull calves come along in the past 3-4 weeks, but 2 of the...