Spring is in the Air!

If you are unsure of that, just try to get into your allergist!  Anyway, one of the first sure signs in Oklahoma are the red buds budding out.  You can tell in our area why they are the state tree. They are everywhere.  Soon their little heart-shaped leaves will be budding out!

The neighbor's red bud

You can also tell from the sound of little league baseball being played everywhere.  This is the first spring Elijah has played in the spring, it is usually the summer league he plays in.  His first game was this week.  He has never played machine pitch so the fact that he didn't get a hit is no big deal.  He has a great swing and with some practice he'll be knocking the cover off of the ball.  He made a great stop in the outfield and one as shortstop, even getting the runner out on second!

A swing and a miss, but what a swing!

Today he went to archery.  He missed the class last fall, but I made sure to get him signed up this spring.  He is loving all the activity!

Archery at the MAC

The Joy of Gardening

Whether it is a beautiful flower garden solely for the purpose of visual pleasure or a vegetable garden meant to provide your family with food, gardening can be immensely rewarding.  This weekend we got the soil for our veggie garden tilled.  We have some amending to do after it is tested, more than likely, but really the hard part of the preparation is finished.  Not that it necessarily physically difficult, it is more of the getting around to that seems to be the obstacle. 

Over the next several days we will test, add to, re-till, cover, and finally plant.  I may try some new varieties of the yearly staples, but for the most part I will not venture to far from what I know will work.  Throughout the spring and summer there will be many hours of hard work put in a relatively small space.  Hopefully that will result in a great deal of reward.  That reward, no mater how meager or great will be frozen, canned, and of course eaten fresh.  We will enjoy the fruits of our labors to the fullest!  I can't wait for that first vine ripe tomato or bowl of fried squash!  That is truly joy!

I think this quote I received really sums it up quite nicely.
“ For me gardening is a journey not a destination. With any luck I will be finishing this place forever”

That is going in the title of my gardening blog!

That Time of Year!

Spring has almost sprung.  Around here it is evident in the trees that are flowering, the daffodils that are making their bright debuts, the allergies that won't go away....  Well, there is another way that I know spring is upon us.  The question posed by many of my friends, "Have you started your deleavening?".  Say what?

Deleavening is done by all of those in my church each spring.  Why?  We are commanded to.  Just who commands this and what is it?  Does it have any meaning today?  Here are just a few tidbits of info you might find interesting.

First a very simple definition of deleavening.  All products with leavening or that are leavening are removed from your properties.  This is your home, car, place of business, your office etc.  Now there are a few exceptions, toothpaste, cleaning products. pet food are a few of them.  These things are not consumed as food, so they are fine to keep.

Now. why do we do this?  In several passages you can see where leaving is likened to sin.  Sin is something we are expected by God to get out of our lives.  By physically removing leaven from our home, it helps us to visualize a spiritual concept though a physical action. 

Finally a few passages for you to consider. (all emphasis is mine)

14 And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever.

15 Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.
16 And in the first day there shall be an holy convocation, and in the seventh day there shall be an holy convocation to you; no manner of work shall be done in them, save that which every man must eat, that only may be done of you.
17 And ye shall observe the feast of unleavened bread; for in this selfsame day have I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt: therefore shall ye observe this day in your generations by an ordinance for ever.
18 In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at even, ye shall eat unleavened bread, until the one and twentieth day of the month at even.
19 Seven days shall there be no leaven found in your houses: for whosoever eateth that which is leavened, even that soul shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he be a stranger, or born in the land.
20 Ye shall eat nothing leavened; in all your habitations shall ye eat unleavened bread.
Ex 12:14-20 (KJV)

These days we don't wait and do it until the last minute.  Our home are more cluttered, we have more hectic lives, and we just like to make sure we do a thorough job.  That is why we are already talking about it and we still have four+ weeks until it actually starts.

This is obviously an Old Testament passage.  Why do we do it today?  Well, obviously it has been commanded taht we do it.  Not by Moses, but by God.  Something we are to do forever.  While the following passage does not mention the actual deleavening of the home, it does show us why we must get the spiritual leaven out of our lives.

6 Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?

7 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:
8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
1 Cor 5:6-8 (KJV)

I'm not going to argue laws done away with or nailed to the cross.  I'm not trying to say that because I do this and you may not, that I am a better person than you.  I do feel (hope) it makes me better than I was.  I just hope I gave you a little something to think about. 

To answer the question posed by my friends, no I haven't started yet.  April 1 is my target date to start.  By then Elijah will be finished with his 2nd grade curriculum, the garden should be mostly planted, and I can focus on that one thing.  After all, if it represents something so important, shouldn't it get a full dose of attention?  To all my friends who have started, I hope it is going well.  To those who haven't, it is still four weeks, just take it a day at a time.

Cabin Fever, Again!

Well, it is day 5 of the guys being gone.  While they are enjoying warmish weather and snowboarding, I am enjoying time with my new best friends:  decongestants, antihistamines, cough medicine, acetaminophen, etc.  Yes, the cedars are pollinating, yea!  All my plans to catch up on recording grades, house projects, and chick flicks have been replaced with lying on the couch and flipping through 300+ channels, with nothing on.  It's pushing 80 degrees, in February, and I'm bundled up on the couch.  Not only that, but I can't smell or taste anything, so I've barely eaten anything this week.  Guess what, I got on the scales this morning, nothing there has changed there.  Come on!  At least a couple of pounds gone, but no!  Now, I did manage to get Tabitha and her friends to the Thunder game.  It was fun, but that is really all that I have done this week.  I'll be glad when my guys get back.

My Besties

"Snow" klahoma-Part 2

We've been hit again!  I actually love it, but then again, I don't have to drive to work or deal with my kids being out of school.  I can just sit inside and enjoy the show while smelling the wonderful stew cook in the crock pot.  I'm actually pretty excited about it (the stew).  When we went snowboarding we were treated to a bison stew  by our friends.  Now that we have some of our own bison, I am putting it to good use.  Yesterday it was chili, today stew.  I am also using some of the stock I made over the weekend.  It smells great!

Elijah is well this week, so I am hoping to take advantage of snow play this week!  They will be heading off to New Mexico this weekend to snowboard again.  I'll just be snow bored.  Actually, I am taking Tabitha and a few of her friends to the Thunder game next week and I have a few projects I would like to do around the house.  They're secret for now!

Yesterday-Snow from a week ago still on the ground.

At last night's game-he came to keep me company.  Waiting for the next storm to come in!

Me at the game

This morning

Bison Stock

Last Friday we received some grass-fed bison that we had purchased.  Along with all the steaks, roasts, ground bison, etc., we got 35 pounds of soup bones.  That takes up a lot of freezer space, and while we had room enough (barely) to fit all 35 pound of them, I decided to go ahead and make use of them.  There was a total of 15 packages, so I used 7 of the biggest. 

The Lovely Bones

I looked for a few recipes and finally decided to make up my own by combining several ideas from the recipes I had found.  Here is basically what I did:

About 1/3 of the bones,which had quite a bit of meat left on them, I put straight into my pot.  The other 2/3 I cooked in the oven until nicely browned.  Then I added these to the pot.  Next went the veggies and spices: carrots, onions, celery, garlic, pepper corns, bay leaves (theses were huge-from a friend in Trinidad), and salt.  All this is then covered with water.  Then I brought it to a boil, reduced to a simmer and let it go all night.

Raw

Cooked

Veggies and spices

Cooking

The next morning I awoke to a wonderful smell, broth not coffee.  I removed all of the veggies, bones, and meat from the liquid.  I needed to let it cool enough to solidify the fat.  There was a lot of fat.  I was able to skim off 1 1/2 soup cans of fat before I chilled it.  There was a problem here.  I couldn't fit my pot into the fridge.  Not a big problem though, we still had quite a lot of snow on the back deck, so I just buried the pot in it.

Nature's Fridge-very green

Some of the skimmed fat

Gelatinous goo

After it chilled, I took the rest of the fat off and had a gelatinous glob left.  I reheated it until it was liquid and strained it three times, twice through several layers of cheese cloth.  Then I brought to a near boil and pressure canned it.  At this point I could have frozen it, but freezer space is now at a premium and since I ended up with 15 pints, it made more sense to can it.  We also tend to loses electricity several times a year.  We have never lost food due to extended outage, but just in case.

Finished product!

I still have 8 packages of bones to do.  The next batch I may cook down much more to have a concentrated stock.  It will take up less space and with garden season coming up, I'll need it!

Cabin Fever?

This is my third post today.  I may  be a little bored.  Well, I did do a couple of things today. 

First, while we were in New Mexico last month I found some fleece-lined bandanas.  So what, you say.  Well, they were in the ski shop.  A lot of the snowboarders wear bandanas to keep their faces warm.  Elijah is also going through a bit of a cowboy stage.  I thought he would really like one, but I was not about to pay $15 for one.  He has an old blue one, so I decided to make one myself.  Actually two.  They turned out great and he loves them.  I love that they didn't cost me a dime!  I had the fleece and the bandana!

Next up, something to keep me a little warmer!  When I went to the ER on the same trip to New Mexico, they had to cut me out of my brand new compression/cold wear shirt.  UGH!  Anyway, it was just lying in the snowboard equipment, tattered and torn.  I was just about to throw it away when, "light bulb"!   I can't get a glove or even a mitten on over my cast.  Last night as we were walking to the Thunder game in single digit temps, my hand pulled up into my coat sleeve was not staying warm.  So with a pair of scissors, my shirt, and more fleece, I made a big cast cover!  I haven't tried it yet, but I'm pretty sure it will work!

Oh, someone talked me into letting him play outside.

Bundled up!