Snow

 

Here it is, the last post of 2023, and (spoiler alert) I’m grumpy. We had snow this morning, four days too late for a white Christmas. It was a sticky, wet snow that made the trees look beautiful.

Snowy morning

The chickens, as usual, were not enthusiastic. I knew the snow wasn’t going to last to the end of the day and was not about to shovel it for chickens. I scattered some scratch grains by the door and figured if any girls were too chicken (ha!) to go out after it, it was their loss. Spot, Frankie, Lu, and Goldie got the goods. Dottie peered out from the coop, uncertain about venturing forth.

Four hens eating scratch grains; Dottie looks on from the coop

She got a little bolder,

Dottie sticks her head out a little farther...

And finally made the leap to the ground. 

and finally joins the others.

By then, the other girls had trampled the ground snowless. There were already 6 eggs in the coop when I went out for chores, and no more the rest of the day. Good thing, because they would have been muddy from dirty chicken feet.

I’ve taken the week off. I had two gum grafts last Friday. It is not something I would wish on anyone, but apparently necessary to fix recessed gums before the bone under my teeth eroded. When I had my evaluation with the periodontist, he gave me instructions that indicated I would be on a liquid diet for 2-3 days following the surgery. Therefore, we had Christmas Observed dinner early. After the surgery, I learned that following the liquid diet, I had to eat 4 days of mushy food followed by another week of soft food. My actual Christmas dinner was this:

Christmas dinner: oatmeal with applesauce and a protien drink. Mmm mmm

Terry and I normally don't exchange gifts at Christmas anymore, but this year he gave me his cold. I’d held off getting it until my body was compromised by the injuries in my mouth. We’re quite a pair, sneezing and coughing all week.

There will be no crackers, chips, toast, cookies, seeds, pecan caramel rolls, pork roast and sauerkraut, etc. for New Year’s Eve or Day. I’ll make up for it later, you bet. I’d say it sucks to be me, but sucking has been forbidden. No straws! Puts too much pressure on my poor gums. I absolutely don’t want to dislodge those stitches! I’d have to do this all over again. Not going there.

Happy New Year to you! I have a feeling it will be better than mine!

Christkindlmarket

 Terry and I made our annual trek to Christkindlmarket last week. We try to get down there while school is in session so we can avoid the innumerable family groups that swamp the tourist attractions during the holiday break. In my research of the train schedules, I discovered that Harvard no longer has anyone in the station to sell tickets at any time. We could not get the $10 day pass without downloading an app on my phone. We go downtown once a year. As cheap as I am, the savings did not seem worth cluttering up my phone or—worst—creating yet another password. We paid $9.50 per person for one-way tickets from the conductor on the train.

I saw two things of interest on the trip down. First, a young woman was using the selfie function on her phone to fix her mascara. I never thought to use my phone as a mirror. I can barely remember to use it as a flashlight. Second, a man about our age had downloaded the app for the day pass on his phone, but the conductor had to help him open the right link. That would have been us, I’m sure.

It was a pleasant day as December goes. The wind was light, and the temps were in the mid-40s. It does not take much for Terry to come unglued in the Big City. When I overshot Christkindlmarket by a block, he got cranky. I knew it had to be around there somewhere, but his impatience made me second-guess myself, and we ended up going back too far. And so it went. We found it eventually. Could I have looked it up on my phone? Yes, but Terry would have had to stand still while I did it, and for him that means hopping up and down while hovering around me. Sometimes it’s just better to keep walking.

When we got to the Market, I was excited to see a vendor selling poutine! That was so much better than my usual choices of bratwurst with sauerkraut, currywurst, or potato pancakes. If you are not familiar, poutine is fries topped with cheese curds and covered with gravy. It’s so awesome! This particular vendor also sprinkled the top with curry powder. Terry wanted currywurst from the same place. I got the food while he got the beer. Each item was $12, bringing the total to $48 for street-food lunch.

Poutine and currywurst

Our hunger and thirst appeased, we strolled around the market. Terry bought a small wood carving of a horse. He likes to support the vendors. I bought nothing. I have enough stuff. We visited the Flame of the Eternal Pigeon Warmer.

The Eternal Pigeon Warmer

Terry took a picture of me with Paul, the Hamburg sailor. A plaque nearby explained that Hamburg and Chicago were sister cities. We were encouraged to post our picture on some social media site. Putting is here is good enough for me. I don’t scan QR codes either. The best part of this picture is that there is a map in the back with “Christkindlmarket” spelled correctly. I can never remember from one year to the next. One word? Two words? Is there an E in the middle? If so, before or after the L?

Hi sailor! New in town?

We went to the store formerly known as Marshall Fields just to see the Tiffany ceiling and the fountain. We didn’t bother with the tree in the Walnut room. They have closed off the viewing area from the floor above. We didn’t even look at the windows on Michigan Ave., suspecting that it would be a big disappointment.

We saw the Christmas tree in Millenium Park.

Christmas tree in Millenium Park

The pavement around the Bean is being replaced, but it was such a gorgeous day with the cloudless blue sky that I had to take a picture of it, fence or no fence.

The Bean

We walked through the tiny restored prairie.

A tiny prairie

The skating rink now had penguins and polar bears on skis to help beginning skaters stay on their feet.

Skating with a polar bear buddy

There was no point in walking all the way to the Hancock building. The Signature Lounge was closed. We walked a little way up Michigan Ave. and stopped in a hotel bar for another beer. We had a nice chat with Carlos, the bartender. He shared the insider scuttlebutt on the Signature Lounge, which was that it closed in a hurry and would probably open back up in a hurry after they had straightened out whatever they got busted for.

After that it was time to head back if we were going to stop at Christkindlmarket again and catch the 3:45 train. I bought a chocolate croissant for the ride home. Terry went off to get another round of beers. When I caught up with him, he was having weisswurst on a roll. Understanding that we were not going to eat again for the day, I got two skinny bratwurst on a roll.

We made the train in time to get a seat together. Two hours later, we were home again. It was a nice day.

Also last week, Jane came up to bake Christmas cookies. We cut back a lot this year. I froze half of both batches of sugar cookies to bake at a later time. Dough freezes better than baked cookies and takes up less space. We abandoned piping icing last year. We strictly sprinkle now.

Cookie production area

We made Christmas bison from chocolate sugar cookies,

Christmas bison

And a variety of shapes of regular sugar cookies. New this year was gold sparkly sugar for the stars.

Golden sugar on the star cookies

We tried something new with the sour cream pockets. The recipe says 2” squares with all four corners folded in. Often the squares unfolded in the oven. This time, we did 2.5” squares with two corners folded in. The result was sour cream cannoli. They taste good, that’s the important thing.

Sour cream pockets filled with apricot and raspberry

 

Holiday prep begins

 At the very end of November, I decided that I’d better dig out the last of the Brussels sprouts and move the chicken fence before the ground froze until spring. I may have mentioned before that while the Long Island variety of Brussels sprout germinated well, they didn’t do diddly for sprout formation. One of the last four was so puny, I tossed it in the compost. The other three were harvested. It will be a pain to prep them, but I hope it will be worth it.

The last stalks of Brussels sprouts

Once I got the stumps dug out, I started moving the fence. Here’s where I started, with the raised beds outside the chicken run.

Before: raised beds outside chicken run

I have to start moving posts on the other side to make room.

Fence moved to the inside of the run to make room

Once that’s done, I can lift the fence over the beds and put the posts in again. The idea here is to let the hens eat the weed seeds out of the dirt as well as give them a nice place to dust bathe, should the ground ever dry out. They had been having a lovely time digging through the mud and then kicking their eggs with their muddy feet.

The beds inside the run

Terry came out to help position extra posts to keep the fence straight and taut. He is more particular about it than I.

Terry installing extra posts

I thought the hens would be out scratching in them immediately, since we were done working on the fence by 3:00. It was a cloudy day, however, and they had all decided to go to roost early. Slackers.

Roosting at 3:00, for heaven's sake!

The last week of November was crazy busy for me with meetings every single night. I was not enthusiastic when Terry proposed that we go to the Victorian Christmas in Sharon, WI on Friday. When we first went, it was a lot of fun. The town ladies made big vats of sloppy joe mix, steam tables of hot dogs, and pies of all sorts. Terry loves sloppy joes. I can eat them in a pinch, but they don’t appear on my list of things I enjoy eating. We went last year, and it was a bust. We went later than usual. I don’t know if they ran out of food or never had any in the first place, but all we could find to eat was chicken noodle soup from a can and doughnuts. The main attraction of the evening is supposed to be the horse parade. The horses and carts are decorated with lights, and they promenade along the streets around the main part of town. Sometime in the last decade, a large nearby stable closed, and the parade has been pretty lame ever since.

“I’ll make you a deal,” I proposed. “I’ll make you sloppy joes if we can stay home.”

Terry asked me to Google it anyway. The Historical Society had disbanded, and the event had been taken over by the Chamber of Commerce. Begrudgingly, I agreed to go again. I made the sloppy joes anyway, and we ate before we left. Good thing, too, because there were no steam trays of hot dogs. The Coffee Cup Café was doing a land-office business. Terry walked in for a moment to see what was on the menu. From the way he smelled when he came out, he didn’t even have to tell me it was fish fry.  More of the shops were open late. We went into an art gallery and an antique store. There were many booths of crafters on the sidewalks or in a big, heated garage that was otherwise empty. It was not clear to me what its function was in everyday life. It didn’t seem like anyone was buying very much. Craft shows are a dime a dozen this time of year. There were also vendors of crystals, herbal tinctures, and odiferous handmade goats’ milk soaps. No, thank you.

I forgot my camera. I took some bad pictures with my phone, which was more the fault of motion and darkness than my phone. This is the Sharon Christmas three. I knew we would be too late for the Christmas tree lighting, but I have never understood what the big deal is.

Village of Sharon's Christmas tree

The horse parade had not improved any. In a dramatic turn of events, the hay wagon bearing Santa came first.

Santa!

That was followed by a handful of pony carts,

Example of cart pulled by 2 very small ponies

A 6-pony team,

6 ponies and a cart

And some mounted riders.

Mounted riders

The end. At least it wasn’t very cold. The Chamber of Commerce has its work cut out for it to get this festival back on its feet. I suppose we’ll have to go next year too. Hope springs eternal.

We put our tree up on December 4. Terry says it has “more character” than our previous trees. Evidence suggests that this is code for “fewer branches” or perhaps “totally branchless on the back.” Two trees were growing close to a larger tree with light on only one side. With their genetically programmed economy, they self-pruned all the branches that weren’t earning their photosynthetic keep. Terry had to cut them out anyway, so why not use them as Christmas trees? We got one, and Jane got the other.

The cats were intrigued. Banjo sat under the undecorated tree as if he were a Christmas present.

Banjo under the tree

It was easy to decorate the tree. With so few branches, we didn’t have to agonize over ornament placement.

Decorated tree

I carefully put the tree skirt around the bottom when we were done decorating. It was not possible to get it to lie flat. Bingo got it into his head that there had to be something interesting underneath it.

Bingo explores; Banjo supervises

Surely there must be something under there!

Banjo comes around to check on progress

Bingo worked at it until it was completely off the tree.

Tree skirt on the move

He sat on it regally for a while,

Prince Bingo

Then pushed it next to the rocker.

Maybe I'll just hide for a while

At 8:00 p.m., the usual night-night feeding time, everything was back to normal with both boys starting at me from the coffee table.

Get off that chair and FEED US.

Yesterday was the momentous day I had been waiting for since mid-October—irrefutable evidence that all the Golden Wyandott pullets were laying. Here they are, five brown eggs from five brown layers. The tiny egg on the right is probably the first pullet egg from the last hold-out. The giant egg on the left is from one of the old girls and may have two yolks. (Ouch!)

 

At long last, all of the Wyandotts are laying!

 

Thanksgiving

 I have been slacking off on blog posts more than I realized. We went to North Dakota last week for Thanksgiving. The week before we left was filled with far too much activity, including but not limited to attending a half-day philanthropy seminar on Wednesday; going to two events on Thursday; making cookies and pumpkin bread with Kate on Friday; baking three more batches of cookies for a bake sale, going to a consultation with a periodontist, and attending an evening event Saturday; and hosting game night Sunday. What was I thinking? All I can say is that everything seemed like a good idea at the time.

Early in the week, I baked sourdough crackers. The first time I tried the recipe, which calls for two tablespoons of dried herbs of the cook’s choice, I decided that the herb I would most like to have was cheese. This time, I threw in a big ol’ handful of parmesan. Also, I didn’t have time to bake the crackers the day I made the dough, so it sat in the refrigerator a few days. To my delight, the crackers puffed up, perhaps because of the extra yeast activity, and stayed crunchy until game night! At which point, Nancy, Jane, and I ate them ALL.

Sourdough Parmesan crackers

Jane brought her cats up with her on Sunday, as she was going to North Carolina for Thanksgiving and her brother and sister-in-law’s 50^th anniversary shindig. We had arranged to have a friend come to the house every morning to feed cats and chickens, and two more cats wasn’t a bit deal. I’m pleased that her cats remember our cats and our house. There is much less hissing. In fact, when I let Gracie out of her travel crate, Banjo ran right up to her, and they exchanged nose kisses. It was very cute. Gracie spends a lot of time upstairs. In fact, I have all three cats here in the study as I type this. Gracie just walked over the keyboard and had to be removed from the desk. We had some quality time this morning.

Gracie on my lap

J.J. repaired to his hiding place behind the box of Christmas decorations in the basement storeroom. He doesn’t seem to lose a lot of weight, so I think he comes out at night to eat and use the litter boxes. I put a bed on the shelf for him. I know he uses it because I found him in it once.

Shy J.J. next to his bed on the storage shelf

He and I have bonded, in a way. When I call for him, he starts growling, or perhaps humming, as it does not seem aggressive at all. He comes out for head pets, and seems quite anxious for attention.

Head pets for J.J.

It is hard to get him to hold still for a photo, so eager is he to rub my hand.

Rubbing my had with his head

That left Monday to get the house and myself ready to leave for five days. As usual, I was tossing clothes into a suitcase late in the afternoon.

Oh my goodness, it’s a long drive to North Dakota. We broke up the outbound trip with a visit to Diane and Tom in the St. Paul area, which is just about halfway.

We spent Thanksgiving with three of Terry’s sisters (he had 10; 9 are still alive) and their husbands, if applicable. It was a whirlwind of people and places—the Moose Club for Steak Night Wednesday, Laura and Al’s house for turkey dinner and cards Thursday, the Eagles Club (for Terry) Friday afternoon, and the Mandan light display and pizza at Elaine and DeWayne’s Friday night.

Iris was kind enough to forward the pictures she took at the light display.

Iris in the entryway

Terry, Elaine and I by a car like the one in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

Iris and Terry

Elaine and Iris

Elaine, Iris, me, Terry

Now that I’m back home, everything is getting back to normal. It was delightful to sleep in my own bed again. We had snow Sunday morning.

Snow Sunday morning

The girls were not excited about it. Only Goldie ventured out at first. She is standing on one leg in this picture. No sense having both feet in the snow at once.

Wind-blown Goldie standing on one leg

I had to clean the coop after my long absence. I tried to get the chickens out so I could do my chores.

Goldie, Sebastiana, and Bonnie venture out

Scratch grains helped some. Spot sat on the windbreak, trying to decide if walking on the ground was worth the treats. I had to shoo the other hens out of the coop and shut the inside door to keep them out until the coop was clean and the food and water refilled.

Spot is indecisive on the windbreak. Silvia and one of the Wyandottes are still in the coop.

I dove right back into baking again, since it isn’t Christmas without apricot-cranberry bread. Also, I have rediscovered granola. I forgot how good it is when you make it yourself. I remember when that was the only way you could get it! No ready-made granola in a box when I was young.

Granola fresh from the oven

Soon I’ll be on to Christmas cookies. I wonder why I can’t seem to lose any weight…