Tag: country living

So yesterday was the worst allergy day of the year, hands down. I sneezed and sneezed and sneezed (terrifying the dog) and then my asthma flared up and I coughed and coughed and coughed (alarming my Beloved Husband). I sneezed and coughed so much that I messed up my back, and started walking around the house like a mummy whose bandages were coming loose. Not fun.

Somehow I made it to bedtime. I felt so crappy, I didn’t even care that the Colts were playing the Saints. I took enough medication to knock out an elephant and fell very deeply asleep.

Which explains why BH had a hard time waking me up at 3:30am.

Apparently, he spent at least five minutes doing the gentle-nudge-sweetie?sweetie? thing. Then he said, “Honey, you need to wake up, but don’t be afraid.”

My eyes snapped open. Adrenaline surged.

BH explained that we had another critter in the house. (Critters adore us so much, they are always trying to move in. But they never pay the rent on time and they hold loud parties and let their friends smoke, so we’ve had to adopt a firm “No Critter” rule.)

At first I thought he was saying the critter was somehow poised above my head, preparing to drop on me. Second adrenaline surge. But, no. This one was wedged between a window and the window screen. There was a hole in the screen, and BH couldn’t tell if the critter made the hole in order to escape out of the house, or in an attempt to break in.

In any event, BH couldn’t find the camera.

I was so grateful that nothing with claws was about to drop on my face, I staggered out of bed and found the camera. And then I fell back into my coma. BH took pictures of the critter.

It was a flying squirrel.

A flying squirrel is basically a small rat with a hot cape, a fear of owls, and a banzai attitude.

But as far as rats go, flying squirrels are cuter than most. And I will forever love this one because it did not jump on my head. After taking the pictures, BH opened the window and the little guy sprung off into the darkness.

Now I am going to lay flat on the couch and moan about my back, all the while I try not to sneeze or cough. The snow cannot get here fast enough, I swear. Ragweed is the devil’s handmaiden.

Bliss. Bliss. Bliss.

We’ve been taking a “home” vacation the last week and a half. (Well, I have. BH has been working.) That means avoiding the computer, reading for fun, not research, and doing all the little projects around the house I’ve been wanting to do, but haven’t made the time for.

Like becoming a domestic goddess.

I went through this phase before, when I was a stay-at-home mom with a toddler and an infant. I had a garden, fruit trees, and a woodpile. I baked and canned and sewed. And then life got complicated for about twenty years. BH and I have taken vows to simplify, simplify, simplify our lives, and spend our energies doing the things that have meaning for us; trying our very best to avoid the rat-race that life often seems to becomes.

So… my vacation! (so far, I am still taking this weekend off, too.)

It has mostly been spent in the kitchen, playing pioneer. I turned a bushel of peaches into…

… a dozen quarts of canned peaches, a dozen tiny jars of peach chutney and a whole bunch of peach preserves.

Then I turned a pot of tomatoes and boxes of blackberries into

spaghetti sauce base and blackberry jam.

Once I got started, I couldn’t stop.

I made deviled eggs and froze massive amounts of blueberries.

I knit a warm vest that will go to a child who could really use it, thanks to the amazing people at Warm Woolies. (Thanks to my friend Martha, and our friend Elvira, for telling me about Warm Woolies.)

I went back to the farmer’s market for more tomatoes and brought home fresh dill and cucumbers.

The tomatoes are in the process of becoming chili base.

And the cucumbers are being fermented into old-school fermented dill pickles. They went in this crock with a bunch of spices and garlic and dill and vinegar. For the next three weeks, I am supposed to scoop off the foam from the top of the crock and make sure the dog doesn’t stick her nose in it. If the crock doesn’t explode or catch fire, in three weeks, I’ll be canning the pickles.

Our wood arrived!!! (Winter is never far from our thoughts up here.)

BH ran the splitter for a day until all the hunks were of manageable size. (We received nearly nine cord.) If it cools down a little this weekend, we’ll stack it.

That’s all for now. My stuff on the stove is getting ready to bubble over. What have you been up to?