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Baking with a Grand

This was another morning where the freezing early temperature was the high. It was foggy with occasional freezing drizzle, not enough to affect the roads or school, but enough to warrant hunkering down in the house for the day. Daughter woke with a bad cold and after taking her son to the bus stop nearly half a mile away, she got in a hot bath then back in bed. Once granddaughter awoke, I decided to entertain her to let her mom sleep.
After we had breakfast and I did chicken chores, we decided to bake crackers together.

She put on her apron, helped measure, pour, mix and cut. After they baked, her job was to put them in the jar.

I think she ate one for every 3 she put away, but it kept her entertained for a while and she made a glorious mess playing in the flour.
This afternoon, we used two very ripe bananas to make a loaf of banana bread and now a pot pie is baking. The warm oven has helped the fire keep the house warm and cozy for sick daughter and the healthier crew that just didn’t want to be outside today. Except for bringing in wood and doing chicken chores, I have stayed inside. If it is going to be cold and damp, I wish it would snow.

January 13, 2015
Pizza from scratch

Today was girls day out while Mountaingdad and Grandson watched a movie. We ventured to Bed, Bath and Beyond to get a lidded glass jar for compost as the newest canine addition to the house puts his feet on the counter when no one is watching and steals from the compost bin. We also needed a broad strainer spoon to make cheese and a cake pan to make grandson’s birthday cake next weekend, then off to the natural food store and grocery. During our outing, we decided that tonight would be an excellent night for homemade pizza and we were going to have a cheese making session to make Mozzarella.

This cheese lesson was without the son that gave me the first lesson and was a lesson for daughter.

A pound of delicious cheese. Then we made dough for two pizzas. Cooked down a pint of my homemade pasta sauce for the pizza sauce, chopped red onion, some of the frozen green pepper strips from last summer’s garden, some chopped garlic, cooked a couple of Italian sausages and assembled them for dinner.

One was special for the adults, the second with just sausage, sauce and cheese for the kids.

We still have a few more ounces of our cheese, so we will look for another dish to have in a day or two to enjoy the rest of our success.

In a day or two, we will have a soap making lesson, after making a batch of laundry detergent today, the soap supply is low and after all, it does take several weeks to cure.

Lovin’ life on our mountain farm and having part of our family here.

January 11, 2015
A Week of Adjustment

Tomorrow evening will mark a full week since Daughter and children arrived with me and their trailer full of household goods that we have been incorporating into our mountain home. All but one box from the garage has been brought in and mostly unpacked. On Thursday, the first day that the school counselor was to be back from the holidays, we scheduled to enroll grandson in 2nd grade, but the weather played havoc, treating us to unseasonably frigid temperatures and strong winds with sub zero wind chills and school was cancelled.

The Principal and bookkeeper were there, so we went by to pick up paperwork and take the necessary documents to try to expedite the process the next day. I worked as a school counselor for most of the 37 years as an educator and never in all of that time did we refuse to register a child who had a valid school physical form from another state, if they had all of the necessary vaccines. This school said that the info had to be on the Virginia form and signed by his doctor. His records had already been transferred to the new Pediatric practice in this area, so a quick appointment was made for the next morning and instead of starting school, he went to the doctor. Once the forms were complete, he did get to go meet his new teachers, see his 14 classmates and get to ride the bus home.

On Wednesday, in the frigid weather, we drove two towns over and bought a twin over full bunk bed for the room the kids will share. It was delivered on Friday and we realized that the foundation under the mattress made the bed too tall for the three year old, so back to the furniture store to get a full size bunky board. Their room is more spacious with the bed turned 90 degrees and pushed up against a wall, our huge heavy headboard and footboard with the rails and foundation stored in the basement.

Daughter realized the bookcase that we brought from Florida would not hold all of the kids books and the board games, so she purchased a second bookcase and we put it together yesterday. She and grandson are sorting and arranging the books on it.

After an initial moment of intimidation with the big dog, granddaughter has decided that she loves “Stranger” (Ranger) and he loves her back. A very tolerant beast he is, fortunately.

We are getting used to the activity of having little ones in the house again, they are getting used to not having Daddy here yet and living in a different place. All of us are trying to get used to the cold, though it does look like we might see more seasonable temperatures this week with a bit of rain and then snow, followed by a few even warmer days.

The chooks are laying a few eggs again, though they aren’t happy about the frigid weather either, spending much more time in the coop.

January 10, 2015
The Great Chill

Our Virginia born daughter who has lived the last dozen or so years in Florida and her Florida born children arrived as an Arctic blast hit our region. The first two days they were here, we saw highs of around freezing and lows 10 or so degree lower. They are cold, to the bone cold and the next two days are colder. We awoke to 20°f (-6.67°c) and that is today’s high.

We have a wind chill advisory for the next day or so. It is snowing, mountain snow showers. The kids want snow to play in, but not this event.

When I took food and water to the chooks, the wind cut through me. I filled the PVC feeder that hangs inside the coop and realized that even the water in the coop was frozen solid. The waterer was brought in to thaw and a pan of water put in the coop. I opened the pop door, they ran out into the yard, turned and back into the coop, where they will likely stay today.
Other than trips to the coop to check for eggs and thaw water, we are going to hunker down indoors with a fire going, games to play, knitting, planning and reading.

My knitting is an Ouroboros Moebius from Margaret Radcliffe, a local knitting designer and author, a friend knit out of Green Dragon Gradient sport weight in Teal which I will treasure as this other local friend is no longer dyeing yarns. Son#1 and family gave me the Organic Seed Grower for Christmas and my two favorite seed catalogs arrived during the busy holidays and I haven’t had time to even look at them.
The day will be fueled by a pot of stew or vegetable beef soup and maybe a pan of bread.

January 7, 2015
The Move

Last Wednesday, I flew to Florida and Thursday and Friday morning, daughter and I finished packing the children’s books, games, indoor and outdoor toys and clothes, along with her clothes, some linens and other needs from their house. Thursday, she and her husband met with the Realtor that is listing their house for sale and signed the paperwork to get the house on the market early this week. On Friday noon, we picked up the trailer and began loading it, putting the children’s dressers, two bookcases, toy bin shelving and daughter’s desk. Once her husband got home from work, he helped us play Tetris with the boxes and items like bicycles, scooters, and outdoor toys that would not go into boxes. Everything stacked up, tied down and balanced.

6 X 12′ stacked front to back, top to bottom

Saturday morning, the dog and his paraphernalia, backpacks of car books and toys, small bags for travel clothing were added to the car along with the laptop, camera, and tablet to begin the 2 day trip north to our home in southwestern Virginia. The weather was beautiful, the traffic fairly light early in the day and though the trailer was 100 feet long, 25 feet wide and weighed 10 tons, or at least it felt that way attached to the back of the vehicle. And the fact that every time I looked in the rear view mirror, I startled at how close that “U-Haul truck” was to my rear bumper. The kids were great travelers, the dog quiet and calm most of the time. When we got to South Carolina and within 35 miles of our first night destination, we landed in an interstate parking lot, creeping along at 5 to 20 miles an hour. We ended up taking a couple hours longer than expected driving almost 12 hours the first day. Yesterday was a shorter day, fortunately, though we did drive in rain off and on, arriving home about 5:30 last night as the cold front hit here, dropping the temperature from the 50s to the low 20s. We are going to have a night of low single digits tomorrow night, quite a change from Florida weather.

We got the trailer unloaded last night and returned today. Boxes are getting unpacked and the family settling in. We are delighted to have them here and hope that our SIL sells the house and moves with them soon.

January 5, 2015
2014 in review

Being on the road after 12 hours with daughtwr, 2 kids, and one big dog, pulling a heavy trailer full of household goodies, all you get from the road is a summary of last year in blogworld.
Tomorrow, we will be home☺

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here's an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 4,800 times in 2014. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

January 3, 2015
Happy New Years from away

For the first time since we met, we were apart on New Year’s Eve. He proposed on New Year’s Eve 37 years ago. We had returned from a ski trip in Vermont, got off the bus and took me to the ER to have my shoulder x-rayed as I had injured it on the trip, in a newly acquired sling to support the separated joint we went out for an early drink then home to my house to celebrate the coming new year quietly. The proposal came just about as the year changed.

Yesterday, I was scheduled to catch a flight in the afternoon to arrive in Florida just after dinner, but before we left for the airport, I received a text notification that my flight was delayed by more than 2 hours. We dallied about, drove to Roanoke where the airport is located, purchased a t-shirt to replace one of the 2 that I had gotten him for Christmas that had to be returned, had dinner at his favorite restaurant and dropped me off at the airport. As soon as he drove off and I walked in, another text delay.

I finally arrived in Florida after 10 pm and was greeted by a bouncing 3 year old in a frilly glittery dress and cowboy boots, hugging my knees and any 8 year old holding a hand drawn welcome sign. Hugs all around and an hour drive back to their house, we arrived to watch the ball drop in Times Square, wish my home alone husband a happy New Year by phone and go to bed. Not a typical end of year.

But it is all for a good reason. Today daughter and I finish boxing what goes in the trailer, they meet with the Realtor who will likely list their home for sale and prepare to load up the trailer tomorrow for the drive to Virginia. This will be a new chapter in all of our lives, a very welcome one for us.

January 1, 2015
Kitchen Additions and other gifts

My Christmas wish list was brief, a hen shaped egg basket for the kitchen counter and an Ott light for beside my chair for knitting or writing at night. Mountaingdad, welcomes suggestions, but is also alert to my doings. While we were decorating for Christmas, I realized that I had never added any holiday music to my Iphone, our CD player took a power surge about two years ago and so the CDs could only be played in the car and he caught me rigging the laptop to a speaker set to play music, so he also bought me a compact CD player with radio and speakers that once I get longer wires will be able to be spaced on opposite sides of the living room. It was delightful to be able to play music yesterday while I was putting the decorations away.

Shortly after all the decorations were stored, our rural letter carrier drove down the driveway and honked his horn, a signal that he had something too large for our oversized mailbox. A trip outside to meet him, we were handed the Christmas box that our daughter had mailed before Christmas. She was in a crafty, hand made gift mode this year and the box contained a roll of unpaper towels, and 2 adorable owl pot holders.

As you see, I got my egg basket and I am working in my recliner with my Ott lamp over my shoulder.

December 30, 2014
As the year ends

My usual routine is to take down and pack away all of the Christmas decorations on January 1. This year, I am flying to Florida on New Year’s Eve to help daughter load a trailer on the 2nd, and share the driving on the 3rd and 4th as we relocate her to Virginia, our house until they have sold their house in Florida, settled into new jobs here and feel ready to begin house hunting again, maybe in a year or so. Since we will be bringing the two children, 8 and 3 with all of their indoor and outdoor toys, dressers, clothes, a few furniture items that she wanted removed from the house before it went on the market, and their 85 lb Golden Retriever, I felt it might make settling in here a bit easier if we weren’t also taking down decorations and cleaning up tree needles, so even though I was feeling a bit under the weather yesterday with a post Christmas cold, I began the process of wrapping and packing, laundering the holiday bath and table linens and boxing them.

Today, feeling less like I had been hit by a truck, I packed up the tree ornaments and lights and removed the tree from the house, vacuuming and putting the furniture back in place. After errands and lunch, I tackled the two huge plastic boxes of Santa figures and got them wrapped and packed. The boxes that have lived off season in one of the ground floor bedroom closets were toted down to the basement closet under the stairs as one or both grands will be living in that bedroom in a week. I have cleaned out both bedroom closets, except for a pressure canner that needs parts, up on the top shelf in a corner and Mountaingdad’s childhood guitar that we have stored and moved ever since we married, but I have never heard him play a guitar. I guess it too will move to the basement.

With the decorations down and having had the furnace serviced and a new filter installed on Christmas eve, the downstairs got a good dusting and vacuuming. Those efforts have spent my energy for the day so the upstairs and rest of the laundry will just have to wait until tomorrow.

By this time next week, all three of our children with their families will have spent a couple of nights with us in the past two weeks. What a great way to end a year.

December 29, 2014
Late Christmas Surprise

Last night around midnight, I was sleeping and Mountaingdad was watching television and there was a light rapping on our door. Of course the house alarm, two big dogs went berserk. The rapping was Son#2, our youngest and his family surprising us with a weekend visit. We had seen them a couple of weeks ago at their home and thought they were coming in January to visit once daughter and her family had moved up from Florida. Since Son#1 and his family had left on Christmas Day, I had stripped and washed the bed linens, but not remade the beds yet, so a quick bed making was done, a bit of visiting then everyone drifted off to bedrooms.

Since our usual Saturday routine is to go to the town, have breakfast and then on to the Farmers’ Market for whatever offerings are available, we all went in together. Being a small town with a large state university, with the students all home for the holidays many of the local businesses take a week off and our first breakfast choice was closed. We did finally get some food, bought our week’s meat ration and a bit for the freezer and came home to more visiting. The children are ages 8 and 3. They both want us to play with them as they don’t see us often. We enjoy this time but wear out much faster than the kids.

After being intimidated by the big dog at first this morning, the 3 year old has decided that he makes a good pillow and is the gentle giant that he is.

The other pup, our German Shepherd has hidden upstairs most of the day, totally overwhelmed by the activity. She better get used to it as the Florida grands moving here next week are the same ages.

Their visit will be short, they will be leaving in the morning as Son#2 is an advanced life support paramedic and has one of his monthly volunteer shifts to serve tomorrow night, followed by a day of paid work on Monday, so he needs to get home and hopefully get a nap before his shift.

A nice surprise.

December 27, 2014