An evening at Grandma and Grandpa's

Sunday afternoon we walked up to Grandma and Grandpa's for a BBQ supper. It was a very grey day.

(I am currently in love with my zoom lens, so there are a lot of closeups.) 

Walking sisters

Red tree flowers

Lily-kins

I love fat little legs

She was terribly proud of her pinecones

daffy-down-dillys 

Owen's motorcycle, for sale. I just liked the red against the cloudy sky

The farm. Isn't it disgraceful that it isn't green yet? 

Pussy Willows

Running girl

Pussy willows, getting green. 

Yellow catkins

Not sure. But it makes me laugh.

Gilbert is into writing his name in the dirt. Generally he just makes i's and t's. 

Orianna being a good little mother

Yet more pussy willows

A duck in the creek

I just liked the red winged black birds in the corner

Tori lugging a hundred pound bag around. She is just that tough.

Tori and the cows

Orianna all set for biking. It was only 50 degrees, so I am not sure why her jacket is off. 

Elsie discovered that if you yelled down into the milk can, it echoed. 

So she took Hoyt's pacifier out so he could yell without hindrance.

I love Elsie's look here. Clearly thinking I was in error when I made her give Hoyt's pacifier back. 

Yelling

Tori, walking home

Through the muck

That is a lot of muck. Did I mention I like my zoom lens?

Grandma walking Hoyt around. 

Excited by cows

Silage 

Ashley, Baby-Vaughan-about-to-be-born, and Hoyt

Tori washing up

Basic Ingredients (and salsa)

Do you know the food magazine Sauver? I saw a deal on it ($5) a year or two ago and signed up. It is mostly about food in different parts of the world. Mostly in America, but Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Japan, Italy, France.... you get the picture. I like it actually. More as reading, than cookbook material. I have made a few good things from it, but since it has a global perspective, the ingredient list is not such that a Northern New York housewife can make a lot of things. One of the last issues had a recipe calling for pickled cherry blossoms. I kid you not. Who has those? I feel pretty sure that even people in New York City might have difficulty putting their hands on some pickled cherry blossoms.

This isn't a complaint singular to Sauver though. Most food magazines these days have ingredients that are unavailable in NNY. Taste of Home and Cooks Country magazines and even Pioneer Woman used to be pretty good about keeping to basic ingredients, but even they have strayed over to the Vietnamese grocery store. Maybe a lot of grocery stores in America carry exotic items, but I had a hard time finding arugula around here. Let alone various fish sauces and miso. I have always thought someone should make a cookbook with basic ingredients. There are old cookbooks of course, but they sometimes call for things that don't exist anymore. (Oleo any one?) And tastes change. Modern tastes are much more intense than years ago when spices, sugar, and seasonings were more expensive or less available. Whoever wrote this cookbook would have to live in Podunk, Nowhere, just to be sure to get the most basic ingredients in the book. That would be a useful book. I am not at all against exotic food and would shop at the Vietnamese grocery as much as the next amateur global chef, mispronouncing every ingredient I asked for, but that is not my reality. And I think there is a large portion of America that shares that reality. Maybe not a large portion population wise, but land wise. There are a lot of very rural parts of America. Northern New York is practically metropolitan compared to parts of Montana or Nevada. Let alone Alaska.

So someone, write that cookbook!

In the meantime, I am going to give you my salsa recipe. I wrote about one years ago, from a canning website, but since that was intended to use tomatoes by the bushel, it isn't an all the year around recipe. This particular recipe I got from Tricia O'Neil in Alaska. I adored her salsa. And now that I have her recipe, people like my salsa.

Salsa

1/2 bunch of cilantro, stems removed, or not

14 oz Italian Stewed Tomatoes

3-5 jalepenos, depending on how hot they are

3 cloves garlic

1/2 of an onion

a dash or two of salt

Juice of half a lime

Pulse in food processor (blender can work, but not as well) or chop it all by hand (a lot of work).

Ta-da! Joy in a bowl.

These are terrible pictures. I didn't want to take off my zoom lens, so it was a little tricky getting these pictures. 

Dad considers cilantro to be a travesty perpetrated on an innocent populous, but I adore it. I never had it until I went to Alaska, and now it is one of my pantry staples. I almost always have it in my fridge. Since it is only 78 cents a bunch at Walmart, I consider it an allowable extravagance. (Does anyone else love buying things that are less than a dollar? Jalepenos are like that too. Buying a jalepeno or two is generally about 20 cents, which delights me. It is so hard to find things that are less than a dollar nowadays. Besides baking soda and salt.) Cilantro is easy as pie to grow too, dumping seeds in the ground when it warms up a little.

Technology

This morning, I am feeling marginally clever, as I am moving things from our old computer's hard drive to my external hard drive. Really, I am just using something my brother in law gave me, with instructions of "Plug this into an outlet. Plug this one into a USB port. Transfer your stuff." So it isn't exactly rocket science. Still, it makes me feel intelligent.

We got a new computer in December, since the laptop we had been using for a year and a half wouldn't turn on. We got a desktop computer, with Windows 8. There were so many negative reviews about Windows 8, I contemplated spending several hundred more dollars on a computer with Windows 7. My cheapness won out. We don't do anything too exciting with our computer--internet, photos, a few games, and music is about as exciting as we get. That is worth a few hundred to do, but not a lot of hundreds.

Despite dire predictions, Windows 8 is fine. You get used to the differences pretty quickly. But then, I am not technologically minded. In Windows 8, when you open a program it generally goes full screen. And when you want to shut it, you go up to the right hand corner and suddenly an "x" pops out and you shut it. A month or so ago, the "x" function disappeared.  We had to use the windows button on the keyboard to navigate around. Then last night, the "x" started to appear again. To the technologically minded, this would be a mystery to ferret out and solve, probably resulting in more negative views of Windows 8 or this particular computer. I, on the other hand, am delighted, as though the computer just played a fun magic trick. I know there are solid, logical reasons for all the things computers do, but I can't help being amazed and consigning all parts of computer reasoning that I can't (or won't) wrap my brain around, to the realm of fairy tales. And really, they aren't far off. Awhile ago, we saw an Amazon promotion for something called the Echo. It is a speaker you plop somewhere in your house and it will do things for you. You call it Alexa and whenever you say Alexa, it will do what  you tell it after the word Alexa. "Alexa, add peanuts to the shopping list." "Alexa, play kids songs." "Alexa, what is the weather in Timbuctoo?" "Alexa, wash the floor." (Ha! If that thing did house work, it would be firmly installed in our house.) All that is pretty magical. But also slightly creepy. Since I think of it all as magical, I never trust any of it. The Echo is scanning everything  you say, all the time, to listen for the word Alexa. Some freaky little obedient speaker is listening to everything you say. Weird. People that understand how these things work, probably understand all the non-hacking things they included and it isn't weird. But as for me and my house, we will stick with a paper and pencil. Or a smartphone. (But not siri, who is sort of like the Echo. I can look up my own weather, random facts, and start my own music, thanks just the same.)

And then these smart watches. Ow! You can check your email, text, pay for things, get directions, monitor your activity, travel to the moon, and even tell time, all from your wrist.

I already feel myself becoming a fuddy dud. In ten years, my kids will be rolling their eyes at my amazement and incomprehension.

And since we are talking about computers, here is a picture of me staring vacantly at a computer screen, courtesy of one of my kids, that I discovered on my phone. Not the most flattering picture, but it seemed pertinent. And I had no other picture to put with this post. And what good is a post without a picture? 

And now I need to get off the computer, so this is not how my kids remember me. "Mom? Oh, you mean that lady who sat very still, with a slightly blue face?" 

First Spring Sunday Walk in the Woods

Yes, it is that time again! I will now put up pictures of exactly the same things as I did last year, with slightly bigger children included in the pictures! But after winter, it is always fresh and new, even if I have seen in for, lo these 32 springs. Which I haven't. Because I wasn't looking around much, that first spring, when I was three months old. And then, I had five springs in Delaware, five springs in Alaska, and one spring in Colorado. So... that would only be 21 springs in Northern New York. 

So here we are, in spring again. And I am in love with it all over again. The buds! The leeks! The sunshine! The first teensy flowers! The calves! The kids' excitement!  

It never gets old. 

I hope I always fall in love with spring. 

Elsie being excited in Penny's general direction

Our small band of intrepid explorers

A rooster-doodle-doo

Tree flowers!

New nettle growth

Gilbert feet

Calving season is in full swing

Aren't they marvelous?

This momma did not trust the dogs

This momma was cool with dogs. 

Matched sets

New fern

Leeks! Actually, they are called ramps most places. But still! Yay!

I don't know what this is. I see it every spring. It is a darkish, purplish color, and those little buds there open to little flowers of exactly the same hue. Some spring I will figure out what it is. 

Dutchmen's breeches buds

Carolina Spring Beauty. These are the first flowers to come out most years. Hepatica comes about the same time, but these flowers are more common, so I notice them more. 

Some more of that unknown plant. Aren't they rather sinister looking?

Walking through the woods

Exploring

Trillium, getting ready to unfurl

Trout Lily leaf. For several years, I thought that late frost had damaged the leaves. But no. They are speckled. 

An almost heart shaped rock with moss, stick, leeks, and trees. 

Leeks were all over. But the bulb wasn't big enough to be worth picking yet. 

Another spring beauty

Paper birch

Hepatica

Hepatica have reddish/purplish leaves

More paper birch

Following Daddy

Lily and Aunt Tori

Elsie walking

Evan being a nut

Boys and their Daddies

These two are pretty good pals

The old sheep fold

The creek, down to regular size again, after swelling a bit from snowmelt

Having a rest

Elliott running up the hill

Heading home

From the elm tree

Elm tree blossoms

Our view of teensy mountains

And home again! 

Clover reading Burglar Bill

These are the three littles who aren't allowed to go into the haymow without an adult. The older kids discovered the haymow is empty and now pretty much stay up there all day. Justin is a wonderful father and took these little ones up to the haymow for an hour or two each day, and helped the kids set up a tire swing up there and sweep the hay away so it is all fresh and clean. 

Tori knowing I am taking her picture

And so I took another one a few minutes later.