a soup and kick tail

 The first step to making this great soup ALL week long, has been that I made a pot of pea soup on last Sunday, and stored it in a quart jar in the fridge.  That is the standard of a cup of split peas to two to three cups of water, a bit of butter, celery seed, black pepper and a bit of onion, all blended together once it has cooked until the peas are soft.

Then, I took about two to three tablespoons of the slightly solidified pea soup in a container all week with a bit of rice, frozen zucchini, more frozen onions, frozen beet greens that were in the freezer, and garlic parmesan seasoning and black pepper.   I added some water to that at work and made a VERY tasty soup that I kept coming back for.  One of the days I added some spicy seasoning with cayenne, and another I put some furikake rice seasoning in it.  The beet greens were a very small amount in each bowl - but it has used that up VERY well.  The picture below shows the soup with the furikake and sesame seed combination in it.  This is a soup I could eat much more often - and would work very well with what I typically grow in my gardens, beet greens and/or kale, zucchini and summer squashes.

 I also checked the little car today, after it had sat dormant for almost two months.  I've been kicking myself that it wouldn't crank, or it would choke on the fuel pump - it still might.. but it cranked, and it ran really well on my usual 'runabout' trip that makes sure it is not overheating and is working well enough for emergencies.  I was feeling quite bad about letting it go so long with all the cold and the ice storms that really required more maintenance of it... but it wasn't going to get any better for not knowing and I finally kicked my own tail today.

I tried to make gnocchi last night, and it was a learning experience.  I needed to add more flour, as the first batch disintegrated in the water - but the second and third bits that I had put more flour in turned out edible.  Tonight, I made leftover rice with kielbasa, diced tomatoes, garlic and lots of other vegetables, mandarin oranges and an egg for each of us on the side.  We're still trying to stretch to make sure everything works out from the lost wages with the ice storm.

I've been catapulting forward with my German on Duolingo - taking the tests to try to get up to my actual level on my phone, and working at my level on my computer account, in between Japanese and Turkish.

It's time to start the garden - I planted a few little things that I don't know if they will take, and ordered some seeds from the preservation society.  I need to go out and do some more work after the hopefully last freeze on Sunday.  We haven't seen opossums, or eggs though, since we went and tried to fix the fence.   Store-bought eggs work in recipes, but they are definitely not the same as having your own chicken's eggs.

 

chicken yard at night

Esme and I went out and tried to secure down the chicken yard a bit more with zip ties and bricks etc et al... two more opossums were in my hen house last night and my big Beau rooster (second in charge, half-blind) did his best to alert me and face them off but they wouldn't leave until I came out. He has a terrible noise he emits when they are out there - between that and the dogs I'm up even if asleep. We'll see if we've managed to close up the places they were getting in at or we'll have another round of checks and fixes. The other bigger rooster, (pictured below, I don't really have a name for him, but maybe Sarge) was on top of the henhouse with all of the hens pushed up under his wings keeping them safe, so both roosters were doing what they could.

mid February tools

 

This is called a 'hoedag', it is a gardening tool that is a hoe on one side and a set of tines on the other.  I have been calling it, in my own mind, some sort of conglomeration of 'hoedak' or 'hoedar' and today, I decided to go look up what it was actually called.  Surprisingly, I have not just made up a name and used it (as I have done with some things all my life, as a way of keeping it organized in my own head) - but it really is a 'hoedag'.  Where did I pick up that name?  It certainly wasn't on any of the tools when I bought them - I remember looking, and even asking myself at the time - what do I CALL this?  Unlike my hori-hori knife, which I also use so often in the garden, and use the name from what was on it when I received it.

It is mid February, and the ice age has ended, at least for now.  I hope for all year.  In those hopes, I put a small patch of turnip seed out in the front garden with this hoedag this morning.  I had given some chickweed that was growing by the front steps to the chickens yesterday and watched them run around and peck at each other to get some.  They looked so miserable and wet this morning in the rain, that I decided it was worth some of my co-op 'old but might sprout' seed even at these temperatures to plant a little something - just to ask Spring to keep rolling along to warm.

 

 Mark had made a good pork roast with all the spices a few days ago (Esme helped grind those up and measure them), and we made stir fry with it.  I bought a new rice cooker a few weeks ago with a gift certificate, and it finally came in the mail.  I think I like it - but I want to see if it will cook lentils as well as rice.  The book has nothing about that - but I've seen some things on line.  I also wonder if it will cook soaked adzuki beans - if so, that would be 'golden'.

 

the sauce for the stir fry, as usual : 1 tbsp brown sugar, bit olive oil, about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of water (I often add more later), 2 splashes of soy sauce and one splash of balsamic vinegar, and about a half a tablespoon or bit more of prepared brown mustard - mix that all together and put in with the vegetables and pre-cooked meat, and when it has all come to a good cooked mixture, add the recently cooked (but not just cooked) rice, a bit more water and when that has heated back to sizzling - make a hole in the middle and crack one egg.  Let the white cook for a moment, then drag the egg through the entire mixture and put the lid on to steam while turning off the heat.  Serve immediately.  This had zucchini, red bell pepper and onions in it, as well as the pork roast and rice cooked in the rice cooker the night before.

 

 And before we go out to town today, I am making some soup.  Mark had given me a large rind of fat in the refrigerator off of his pork roast two nights ago, and it was time to do something with it.  I put a pot of split peas on the stove with olive oil, celery seed, and pulverized brown mustard seed in it, as well as the fat rind.  In a couple of hours I can blend it up and put it in quart glass jars to use for the week.  Pease porridge in the pot, nine days old - not quite, in glass jars put up in the fridge shelf :)

This is the little mortar and pestle that my mother-in-law gave me a few years ago.  I use it to grind up seeds like these in small batches to use in cooking.  Whole brown mustard seed, from an Indian cooking spice kit I bought years ago, and did not have too much use for it particularly, until I began grinding it up in small batches. 

for languages lately, I've done Spanish, German, Turkish and Lithuanian.

I had the opportunity to try to speak to someone in Spanish, they asked me if I could say whatever it was en espanol etc...  but all I could think of was half German, half English, and something else in Spanish that had not meant the right thing in the past.  For actual usability, I really do need to take some face-to-face Spanish lessons covering things I actually need to say.  Maybe some day here.

rolling

 Getting back in the swing of things, now that the ice is finally gone.  There was even some still on our road this morning and, taking the back road on the way back in, we saw some even this afternoon at 70 degrees.  I'm very glad I didn't try to take the back road route to the highway that other day - I turned around and took the shorter, more hilly route that I had already been over once in a wild ride, because I knew what it looked like and the back road route is longer, a bit flatter but so narrow there is no place to turn around if you come up on something you can't manage.

 We restocked our feeds, and are halfway through restocking our propane.  It will be tighter this month, especially trying to restock, because of the missed paychecks from the ice storm.  I bought eggs for the very first time in a store in what has to be years - because I was going to make some cookies and our hens haven't laid in months - they were laying one every three days or so before this ice storm but of course during it, nothing at all.  Opossums may be to blame - as well, time will tell.  I'm glad to have the chickens themselves mostly healthy and bumping around pecking in their yard as pets, even without eggs.

 Esme had been very worried about her classes at the trade school with the state of emergency and yet their strange attendance policy.  However, it seems like that will work out - and she can catch up.  It took a lot of reaching out and frustration to get them to actually talk to her before she showed back up at the doorstep - which she wanted to know before she got there etc.. but finally the answer was : 'yes, it will be in a way excused because it was weather emergency, but it will still be marked on the papers absent'... I saw her put her hands out and say 'What does that even mean?' to me in sign language.  I agree, kid.  I agree. 

For languages I have been doing mostly Japanese (at the highest level I have reached) and Turkish (low profile, and vocabulary work) and a little vocabulary work in Lithuanian.

Now to catch up on the rest of the things at work - some chores, restock and pinch our pennies for a few weeks until we know everything will work out better and / or the taxes get done and we see our return. 

january ice storm tennessee 12 days on : we break out finally

   

 

It did not happen early in the morning, but at 1:45 pm we finally made it to the highway.  The postmaster had wanted me to come earlier in the day, if the road was clear, and help with the backup of packages - but I walked the road at 9 and at 11:30, and again at 1 pm.  At 9 it was still a slick gleaming sheet of ice, albeit thinner than it had been yesterday.  There were also more patches in sunny areas where there was no ice at all, including our entire garden area (seen below, ala dogs) but there were still many shaded areas, including on the hills, that were still dicey at 1:45.  

 

Mark got to the end of the road next to the highway and asked if we should turn around and try to go back up what we had just come right away - in case we couldn't get back in when it got colder again.  It was 45 degrees, and the forecast said it wouldn't get colder again for a few more hours - so we got some propane and a few groceries, and then headed back in for another wild ride up and down those hills.  I am very glad Mark was driving for both of those - and I might have turned back seeing the jagged downhill slide that then went into the uphill - but he thought he could make it, actually, it was 'I hope we can make it'.  It was the same on the way back in, with a propane tank, but the few places where the sun had melted down to bare road helped to catch the footing back. 

 

  

 

that garbage can is still trying to get free from the iceberg 

 

 

at 9 am this morning - it had melted another half of this by 1:30 when I made my third walk of the day  - I checked on the mapping app and from our mailbox to the one I was walking to it was .7 miles one way, and that doesn't include our long driveway - so I feel I can say that I was walking 2 miles there and back at the most, several times a day.  I haven't been sitting on my tail for this storm - and my legs do feel it.  

  

 

At 11:30 Grandma's dogs had decided they had to come home with me and hang out with our dogs.  The garden area was entirely sunny and clear - very different than what was happening up the road from there.  After we got some supplies and got back in, I brought Grandma the supplies we got for her in a sled, because it was still slippery on the road up to her house, and carrying it didn't seem like a great idea.  I could have gotten her a few more things - and I'm not planning on going out tomorrow until at least noon - even though it says it will be 50 tomorrow, and overcast.

 

afternoon february 6 - january ice storm tennessee

 I took an afternoon walk at 2 pm, as well - and it was getting better - the creek was roaring with all the runoff - but we're still wondering if it is better to wait until the entire day has had time to clear things.  We aren't at the point where anything is critical, we're just 'out of most things' and finding other things to use, instead.  We have water and power, and Mark has been doing okay with his extra heaters.

 

  

this is still a skating rink down to our house from grandma's mailbox

then it gets pretty clear, up until this point 

 

just past the 800 house 

looking back at the 800 house from the 600 hill

climbing up the 600 hill

at the top of the 600 (911 address points) hill, looking down towards another 90 degree corner, which then goes further down to another 90 degree corner, and then up and down a big hill

 

Do we want to try to get out and then have to get back in with supplies that are going to take us hours to collect, and may or may not be easy to find in the first place?  If everyone else is getting out, as well, the stores may be hard hit and if we have to wait too long anywhere - it will be too late as it will refreeze tonight - it might be a fools' errand to try today, because we are so far from town.

 

The postmaster wants me delivering packages tomorrow, and my office boss said I could come anytime during the weekend and work extra to try to catch up on physical papers.