Evening

Last night, I went over to the farm with good intentions of going up to the hill, to the wild orchard there and picking drop apples to feed to the pigs with for a few weeks. But I wasn't organized enough, in that I didn't have anything to put the apples in or anything to put the things I put the apples in in, like a truck. Mainly, I thought the kids might stop fighting if we went over to the farm. After five minutes of looking at pigs and sheep, it was evident that fighting was going to happen, no matter what, so we went home. But to save my sanity, I took a wandering way home and took pictures.

Taking pictures makes me feel better, almost always. 

Goldenrod, monuments to the summer that was

Sunset on the barn

Grazing

This willow looks like a menorah, with lots of curved arms. 

A fuzzy picture, but love the glow

The cows all had to see what I was up to

Scottish Highlander in the sun.

What is with white eyes lately? Everything I take a picture of has white eyes.

This other Highlander is a bit pushy. Mainly because she has horns and most of the other cows don't. So if someone gets too close she tosses her horns in their general direction. Meanie. 

She looks a bit startled

Venison Stew

My clever husband, with his mule deer buck 

Isn't that a wild set of antlers with that curve? This is the first time Justin has really hunted in years. I think he bought a licence out here a few times, but all that Alaska and Colorado hunting, where you hike for days and see no other living soul (pretty much) has spoiled him for the tamer hunting of the east coast. Particularly the hunting of the Vaughan farm, where you might trip over the local justice of the peace, who takes a liberal view of property rights or other random guys who "lost track of where they were" (uh huh) and just ended up hunting our woods. 

So he went West, back to his roots. And he has had a lovely time. They hung this deer for a few days to age it, and are cutting and wrapping the meat today. 

He is bringing back all of that venison, so when I saw the recipe for Venison stew in this month's Saveur magazine, I decided to try it with some two year old venison from Owen that needed to be used. 

It was scrumptious, if I say so myself. The actual recipe is here. It involves mushroom pierogis, which takes approximately 19 times longer to make than the venison stew does. So I wisely avoided the pierogies. And I will give you the real recipe, and then my actual technique. (Technique sounds more generous than, say, "recipe corruption".)

Venison Stew

3 Tablespoons vegetable oil
2 - 2.5 pounds venison shoulder, tied into a roast
salt and pepper

Heat 2 T oil in dutch oven. Sprinkle roast liberally with salt and pepper and brown on each side. Remove roast from pan.

8 stalks celery, finely chopped
2 large onions, finely chopped
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped

Add remaining 1 T oil to dutch oven. Cook celery and onions until beginning to carmelize, 8-10 minutes

2 cups red wine

Pour in wine and reduce by half, about 6 minutes

4 cups veal or vegetable stock
2 medium carrots, finely chopped
12 sprigs flat-leaf parsley
1 bunch thyme
1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard

Stir in stock, carrots, parsley and thyme (tied together) and mustard into pot. Put roast back in dutch oven and transfer to 350 degree oven and cook for four hours.

That is the gist of the recipe.

My Venison Stew 

2-3 pounds any old kind of venison that is lurking in your freezer. I used a couple packs of steaks.
3 T leftover bacon fat or oil
salt and pepper

Chop 8 stalks of celery and 2 large onions into whatever size you feel like (They are cooking for 4 hours, they aren't going to be really noticeable, finely chopped or not)
Press 4 garlic cloves

Dump in 2 cups red cooking wine from Wal-mart (near the vinegars)

Add in 4 cups chicken stock (WHO has veal stock? I would like to know.)
2 carrots chopped (Or add them with the rest of the vegetables because you didn't read the recipe carefully enough)
A generous tsp of Italian seasoning
A pinch or two of dried thyme
1 Tablespoon whatever mustard you have

And cook for four hours. It is marvelous with mashed potatoes. Or try the pierogies, if you have nothing going on for the next week. Actually, maybe they don't take that long. I just saw the length of instructions and my eyes glazed over.

Next time, I might try the slow cooker on low for eight. Because that it a more convenient time, and since it isn't a roast, I feel like it was a touch dry. I actually like slow cooked meat, cold the next day. It seems much moister. But this was pretty good warmed up too. 

Halloween

A house in town had this jack-o-lantern out

This little chicken and I walked to school to watch the Halloween parade. Our school still does costumes, a parade outside for parents, a parade inside for the middle and high schoolers to see the kids(we have a K-12 building), a Haunted Hayride by the FFA and large, excessive parties with potentially homemade items. We live on the edge up here.  

   

Being a bit shy 

He has goals. I love this kid!

Kindergarten pumpkins. 

Gilbert's is all the way over to the left in the middle. I am thinking he may have had help with the placement of the orange strips. 

I had to go down to the art room to fetch Gilbert's knight helmet, which he had misplaced and I saw this at the high school gym. Whaaaat? We never got to do archery. Back in my day...

Gilbert, lining up with his class 

Some of the parents waiting for the parade.

Gilbert's teacher, Mr Berns, was a scuba diver

This might not seem like a lot, but seeing Gilbert, so excited to see Elsie and I, walking carefully by with all his class instead of running over and ignoring everything he was told before they came out, was really... well, I was proud. I worried so much about how he would do in school and he is doing really well, socially. He isn't a problem child, he is good. I have known all along that he was good, but I worried the excitement and constant stimulation of being in a room with twenty other kids might make him act out. 

There is still a good deal of enthusiasm in him, but he is well behaved. Mostly. 

This is Wyatt, the other little boy with Down's in Gilbert's class

Some costumes. Surprisingly, there were only a few Elsa's and no Anna's. 

My little knight

Lily, in her Kuspuk. Since living in Alaska, I have been wanting to make a kuspuk. So I finally did. Lily loves it and plans on wearing on a regular basis. 

Kuspuk's are light summer coats, but they are roomy enough to go over a winter parka. I guess to make the parka's more beautiful or distinctive. When I was making this, late Thursday night, I realized this might be where the idea of hoodie sweatshirts came from. We owe so much to Alaska.

Older kids

Unenthusiastic Southern Belle

My cowgirl

Old lady

My sweet girl

You can't really see in this picture, but I saw a couple of these masks. There is a heart filled with "blood" and when the kid squeezes it, the blood rushes up and drips down their face. Quite disturbing.

A giant pumpkin on our way home

Abandoned houses really come into their own this time of year. 

Trick or treating

We had to take a picture to send to Daddy

The last few here are phone pictures. Sorry about the quality.

Trick or treating at Owen and Ashley's, we met this Bad Hombre.

Who then became a lion

All the kids, trick-or-treating at Mom and Dad's. Mom and Dad get no trick or treaters, so the grandkids got the run of the candy bowl.

They all had white eye, (which made them look possessed) . The red eye feature wouldn't fix white eye, so I went into paint and scribbled a little dark in each of their eyes. Don't look close. 

A giant Chicken hovering over a sweet elephant

A tractor playing lion