A Busy Saturday Morning

I am a bit overwhelmed by how much we've gotten done already today. (Ignore the typos. I am typing this manually because it is faster than the voice system and I havne't much time before we need to eat). I guess DH gets the credit for being a constant pest about getting me out of bed in the morning. He really tries to be understanding, but to him sleeping until 7 is sleeping late and if you're still in bed at 8, half the day is gone. He managed to get me up and moving around 9:30 or so.

He has gotten smart and gotten the girls into the "get mommy out of bed" game. He pretends he is coming back in to snuggle with me then lets the girls in and gets them all riled up into a play session. Although normally very careful about not walking on or banging into me, two border collies well wound up into a game of play fight with daddy will inevitably bang into, jump on, and walk over the other person in the bed. It also shakes the entire bed and makes a lot of noise. Although I do ahve a reputation for sleeping through just about anything, even that tests my ability and need to sleep.

Then, of course, Molly set off the "must go out and potty alert". DH didn't believe it was possible they needed out, so I got up and let them out. Although Shawnee had still been in bed with DH when Molly set the alert off, she apparently had an urgent need to potty. Molly always seems to be alerting for her sister.

I really just wanted to be in bed another half hour or so for the pain killer to kick in. Hrmm. Anyway, once I was out of bed, I figured I might as well hit the bathroom. On the way back, my leg was acting up, so I had to lie down again but DH massaged it a bit to loosen up the muscles.

Then I decided to see if Molly was able to find me when I hid on thec omforter like she can with her daddy. She HATES it if he hides all the way under the comforter and this has turned into a "find daddy" game. So this morning we played a little "Find Mommy" and I made it even more difficult after the first couple successes by slipping onto the floor under my comforter when she wasn't looking. The hardest part for her was figuring out how to get under the comforter when I was crammed in the little space between the bed and the cabinet. But she was very enthusiastic and I ended up giving her a pull command to drag the comofrter back onto the bed. Shawnee tried to get into the fun too.

By then my stomach was growling, so I got up. Made tea and musli for me and bread and coffee for DH. We tried to eat outside at the picnic table, but it was a little too breezy, so we retreated to the kitchen.

Then DH did the dishes and I wandered around to open windows in living room for fresh air. He also wanted to wash and peel potatoes. While he was doing that, I look the one houseplant from the living room that needed to be repotted out and did that. It needed some trimming, so I got the clippers out.

Then I noticed some dead branches on some of the lavender we had split up. It had been in a too shady corner was was VERY leggy and hadn't been trimmed as well in the spring as it should have. So I did it and the other clumps. One is coming in REALLY well now, so I was able to trim it back. I am afraid the others will die if I cut them back into the long branches under where the green stuff is. So I have to wait until they come better and hope that they start sprouting down the branches now that they have more sun.

I then took a very short rest. We've been talking for several days about trying to get some of the horses hooves trimmed. My mare especially was in desperate need of trimming and Quintas, DH's paint, is also in need of it because she broke some hoof off right before we moved them into the summer pasture (saw it first leading them over).

You see, we don't have a reliable farrier. We've tried several different ones. The only one we can sort of count on has absolutely no experience with Western horses and I don't think he trims them right.

(interupted for our main meal of today, which is more-or-less to be eaten at lunch time. DH busy this evening milking for a friend so it is easier to eat before he leaves then just have sandwiches later. today we are having the danish meatballs and potatoes we would have had last night if he weren't so late getting home from learning to do the cows that we ate the leftover burritos planned for tonight instead)

(okay, meal done and DH gone to milk cows. I can finally rest!)

We've tried a local farrier recommended by the most known one around here who didn't have time for new clients. The guy was a total jerk and I really hated him. He missed appointments, not calling until a few hours AFTER he was supposed to be here to tell us anythign. He put shoes on her but did it wrong, so he hammered a nail into the painful part of her foot AND tried denying it. (Imagine having someone pound a splinter under your fingernail and hold onto your hand when you tried to pull away) He was just an idiot for a number of other reasons.

Then we had the guy who bred Tracy do Ria a few times (once here and twice we drove her down to him) but when we tried to make an appointment with him a few months ago he told us he wasn't doing it any more. So there we stood without a farrier and horses in need. We did get the one we can count on to trim them, but it just didn't feel right.

So for DH's birthday in April, I gave himt he Western Horseman book on hoof care (Well-Shod) and a homemade gift certificate for the tools. He has now gotten them and we've spent hours studying the books. He's done some trimming, but not much more than cleaning up rough edges and such so far.

So this morning we got Ria out to try to get her feet done properly. The info in the book matched the gut feeling we both have had--they've been leaving her feet far too long in the toe. With the rain we've had this week, the summer pasture is a little wet. This softens the hooves and makes them easier to trim.

ria was uneasy because of her past bad experiences. It didn't help that DH was feeling a little unsure of himself and it took a while to do what needed to be done. But by the time all four feet were finished, we could really see a lot of improvement in how she is standing. We'll see how they wear over the next month then trim her again. We can't fix them completely at once, so will have to slowly adjust the angle so she is standing properly. We also want to get a tool for measuring the angle, because that will help a lot.

Tomorrow we will take one or two of the other horses. They don't have the severe problems Ria does and seem to wear well naturally. With Ria, we are pretty sure that she hadn't been trimmed properly as a young horse, which has given her lifelong problems.

Now that I am finished writing allt his, I am going to go outside and lie down to take a nap in the fresh air. I am EXHAUSTED! We had hoped I'd be able to sit on a stool while he worked on her, but she wasn't calm enough.

Bexican Style Burritos

This is something I make pretty often. DH really likes it and it works out well for a make-a-little-at-a-time meal. It is also easy to adjust when we eat because the last minute prep is just 20mins or so in the oven. I even made a vegetarian variant when our friends from Germany were visiting. So here is how I make it. You'll want to adjust the ingredients to your taste or diet. Adjust the preparation process to your own health and limitations.

Ingredients

• a package of ground beef or other meat
• a big onion or two smaller ones
• a jar of mushrooms or fresh ones
  
• a can of red kidney or chili beans (optional)
• a can of peeled tomatoes or fresh ones
• one fresh pepper
• salsa (I usually buy cheap ones for putting inside and save better ones, if we have them, for topping)
  
• a bag of grated cheese
• enough tortillas for 2 each person or enough for all the filling you are making. I usually use one package of 8 smaller tortillas or 6 larger tortillas to make 2 days worth of burritos for me and DH
• sour cream and salsa to put on the table for people to use
  
• any other veggies you want (zucchini is good either grated from the freezer or fresh in chunks. a can of corn is really good in it but DH doesn't care for corn)
• salt, ground pepper, and other seasonings to taste

1. The night before, if you remember, get the ground meat out of the freezer. Also ask DH to get out the big lidded saute pan usually used for this. Any lidded frying pan will do. The lid is for covering while simmering slowly or between cooking rounds. If you forgot the night before, do it as early in the morning as you are functional enough. The meat is likely to need to be defrosted in the microwave in this case. Allow for a long rest after getting the pan out (OUCH!).
2. Get the canned goods and onion out of the workshop.
3. Take a break.
4. Coarsely chop the onion. Be especially careful with the knife if it is a migraine day like today.
5. Take a break.
6. Clean and coarsely chop the pepper. Remember the extra knife caution.
7. Be sure you are remembering pain killers because there is no way you can finish in time for dinner if you forget. Also make sure the meat is getting thawed enough for cooking. Give it more time in micro to defrost if needed.
8. Rest up really well and give the pain killer a chance to kick in.
9. Turn up some music because the next step takes longer and the distraction helps cope with the pain and keep your mood up.
10. Put oil and a single piece of chopped onion in the pan and turn it up high.
11. While waiting for it to start sizzling, open and rinse the jar of mushrooms and can of beans. Be careful with the open can--those edges are sharp and just as dangerous as knives.
12. When the onion piece starts sizzling, put the rest in. Stir them around regularly with the wooden spatula until they start looking a little translucent.
13. Add the meat and break it up with the spatula. Cook it until about half browned.
14. While the meat is browning, rinse out the meat tray and pour the water into the dog bowls and add dry food to soak. Stir the meat more.
15. Once the meat is about half browned, add ground black pepper and chili powder to give it more taste.
16. Open the can of tomatoes, biting back the scream from the pain of using the can opener (it worries the dogs and doesn't really help anything). Be especially careful of the sharp edges. Do NOT drain it, but stick a knife in and cut up the tomatoes a little bit.
17. As soon as the meat is browned, put the lid on, turn off the burner, and go crash for a while. You deserve it.
18. Realize suddenly that it is way past lunch time and you should have had some. Go scrounge something up whether you want it or not. Feed the girls too.
19. Put the pan on the slowest burner and turn it on low. Add the rest of the filling ingredients--beans, peppers, tomatoes, any other veggies you are using. Also add some cheap salsa if you can open the jar without hurting yourself too much (banging the side of the lid gently on the counter sometimes helps. Otherwise you need to pry it open with something to break the seal if it is a new jar). Stir everything together. Salt it and stir again. Fresh tomatoes and zucchini, if you use them, increase the need for salt. But just do some for now--you can taste test it later.
20. Cover the pan and leave it to simmer for an hour or so, going back to stir once in a while.
21. Make sure you actually remember to go stir it.
22. If it seems really juicy, you have two options. You can let it simmer uncovered for a while or you can thicken the juice with cornstarch paste. Which I do depends on time and what I feel like.
23. Once you think the mix has cooked long enough and you've dealt with the juice, turn it off and let it cool down a bit so it is easier to work with. Take a rest while it cools.
24. Once it is cool enough to work with, find an oven-safe dish that is about as wide as the tortillas. Then start rolling burritos.
25. To roll a burrito, put it in the pan. Then put a pinch of grated cheese in the middle of it. Add a few scoops of filling in a line across it. Top with a little more cheese. Roll it into a tube. Flip the open side down.
26. Repeat until out of tortillas or filling, taking breaks as needed. With time, you'll get a good feeling for dividing it up right. Initially or if you need a certain number, it might be useful to divide the filling up into approximate portions before putting into the tortillas to be sure it works out about even.
27. Cover the top with lots of grated cheese. Then cover the pan with foil. Put it in the refridgerator or a cool place until time to eat. This recipe would work fine for preparing the day before using.
28. About a half an hour before you want to eat, get out the pan of burritos and put it in the oven. Turn the oven on to around 200 degrees C (375-400F). It is fine to put the burritos in before the oven is hot--that way they warm up to the temperature slowly while the oven does. If your oven is really slow, you may need a little longer to heat it.
29. After 15-20 mins, remove the foil so the cheese can melt and brown. When that has happened, remove from the oven.
30. Serve with sour cream and salsa. It has a lot of vegetables in it already, so you don't really need more. However, if you want it, a salad or rice goes nicely with this. I've even put rice into the burritos when I've had leftovers or wanted to stretch the meal to more people. Rice in the filling is especially useful for giving it more substance for a vegetarian recipe.
31. Leftovers reheat nicely in the microwave.
32. Hope someone else does the dishes or let them sit for the next day--there is no way you can do both this and the dishes in the same day! But you can do them the day you eat leftovers. ;-)

Questions anyone?

Housework: Doing the Dishes

Doing the dishes is probably one of the most difficult tasks for me considering my health. In fact, I spent three days struggling to do the dishes. It wasn't that we had some insane amount of dirty dishes before I started or that we dirtied a whole bunch after I got started. The problem is that I am extremely limited in how much I can stand there and do the dishes. They wouldn't even be finished now, if DH hadn't washed the rest of them this morning.

I can pretty well manage getting the dishpan out of the cabinet under the sink. I even do okay getting the detergent up, putting that in, and finding a brush and the drying rack. Our dishes aren't impossibly dirty because we always rinse them well after use, and generally keep them stacked on the counter beside the sink.

Because of my pain, I can't stand more than a very short time. I've tried taking my office chair in and put in front of the sink, but it just doesn't work very well. Sitting isn't that much more comfortable than standing. A lot of the time, DH tries to take care of the dishes because of these difficulties. But he can't be everywhere at once, so I do what I can.

We thought about a dishwasher, but we don't really have the space. It would also be overkill for a family of two that rarely has guests. Both the purchase experience and the cost of running it outweigh the benefits. And it would take us days to fill it. I also still wouldn't be able to empty it because I can't bend down. Although it may be possible to train Molly to retrieve the clean dishes out of the dishwasher, I don't think that would be very hygienic.

What I do when I do the dishes is start with as little water as possible in the dishpan. I then washed the little that I can and put it on the drying rack. Then I go rest for another half an hour or so.

By the time I come back, the water has gotten cold. I add more from the hot tap. I again wash what I can and put it on the drying rack. I rest again.

I repeat this cycle until the drying rack or the dishpan is full.

When the drying rack is full, I rest until it is dry enough to be put away. Occasionally I assist the drying with a towel, but not usually. Then I put away everything that goes above counter level. Everything goes on the counter, I stacked neatly for DH to put away later. I can't bend down to put things away.

When the dishpan is full, I empty the water out and start over. We recently got a new dishpan that is smaller, which makes life easier for me. I only need to tip it in the sink to empty it. The old one was larger, and I had to stop earlier, because I don't have the strength in my hands to lift it very well. When I tried, I often spilled water all over the place. So sometimes I just had to do the dishes until the dishes were full and leave the full dishpan for DH. So the new one is much nicer for me and I like the pretty purple color.

So I repeat like this until there aren't any dishes left.

There are some things that I don't wash. Things that are really heavy like the cast-iron pots and pans are just too much for me to manage. DH has to get those too.

Obviously, having me do the dishes is also very expensive in oil for heating the water and in the water itself. This is why DH does his best to do the most of them. I also try to get them before we have very much accumulated, because then I might be able to do with only one dishpan of water.

Migraine

I have a really bad migraine today. I had planned to make a post about how I do laundry, but I am just in too much agony right now. I am going to sip my tea and try to relax. The new neighbors making unusual noises (lots of cars in and out) keep setting the girls off and that REALLY is not helping my head.

Dealing with Dried Herbs

Once the herbs we cut for drying have dried, we have to do something with. We can't have them hanging around until we need them--they'd lose their flavor and get dusty. Also we need the space where they are hanging for drying more.

We have already processed two big batches of mint--two different types. I also just finished a big batch of tarragon. For some things, like the red mint I use for tea, I leave even the coarse stems in. For others, I remove them. It depends on how easy they get cut up and how they taste. The green mint stems are more "grassy" in taste, so I take those out. I am not even sure yet if the flavor of the dried green mint is pleasant. I also still don't know what kind it is. I will have to take pictures one of these days so mom can try to figure it out for us.

We want our herbs chopped up. The easiest way we have found to do this is to break them up into the chopper than came with our Braun staff blender. It works great for dry herbs, but we do need to shake it while it chops to get all of it cut up. If any stems came into the chopper and were too coarse, it is easy to pick them out.

I have learned that it is best to work on a clean, dry area when breaking the herbs up into the chopper. A lot of it will fall all over the place and if you work on a clean, dry spot, you can just brush that into the chopper. I have also learned that I should only do this on days when the vacuum is out for me or DH is around to deal with cleanup. I manage to drop flakes and bits onto the floor. I managed today to clean it up with dustpan and brush, but getting up and down was very painful for me.

Once it is chopped up, I pour it into a clean, dry glass. If it isn't chopping easily, it probably isn't dry enough. I had that problem with some of the mint I did. Label the glass because all this chopped up stuff looks pretty similar and it is annoying to have to sniff them all to figure out what you are dealing with.

Then we put the glass on top of the furnace open for a few days. That gives the last moisture a chance to escape. Then we put the lid on and leave it there, but check the lid for any signs of moisture. All that hard work will be wasted if we seal it up with moisture still in it!

The next one I need to process is called "Løvstikke" in Danish. Scientific name Levisticum officinale. This would be "lovage" in English as far as I can find out. It is related to celery. We use it mainly for improving the flavor of older potatoes when boiling. We have a big bunch of it hanging to dry in the window in the hallway and it seems to be about dry enough.

An Adventure in Herb Use

Yesterday we had a little adventure in using one of the herbs in our garden. DH only knows the Danish word for it, which is Malurt. He seems to recall it being used in sauces and schnapps. So last night when he was making dinner -- you don't even want to know what this dish is called -- it seemed to need something and I suggested he try a little of that. We've taken some of it up to his mother at one point and she used a little bit in goulash and it tasted fine. DH went out and got three sprigs of it and put that into the meal.

Taste testing in a few moments after revealed an extremely nasty aftertaste. He made excessive attempts to get rid of the taste. He made it somewhat edible but not very appetizing. Obviously, it was my fault for suggesting this herb. In any case, we managed to eat one portion of it each.

Because of this dramatic failure, we decided we better look up this herb and find out what it was and what we're supposed to use it for. It isn't in our herb book, so I tried online. It turns out that the English word for is wormwood, primarily because it has been found effective in eliminating internal parasites. So I guess DH and I don't need worry about having worms.

It isn't recommended for use in food other than schnapps. It is also the herbs that was used to make absinthe.

The Danish word is actually a variant of a word meaning moth plant. People used to put bunches of it in cabinets to keep the moths away. As some of you already know, we have a moth problem. The kind of moths that get into food. DH won some kind of bird seed a few years ago from work and it brought a moth infestation in the house. Before we realized it, it had infested the dog food. At this point, the dog food and at least the majority of our human food is stored in jars and plastic containers to try to prevent moth infestation. However we still have moths in the house and no idea what they are living in. Sometimes I find them in the laundry detergent. But anyway, we now have several bunches of this herb hanging in the house in the hopes that it will keep the moths away.

We also read that people used to put in their beds to keep the fleas and lice away. So now we have pieces of it in the girls beds. They don't have fleas, but do occasionally get ticks. This will also help prevent a flea problem from developing.

We are considering whether we could dry it and use it as an extra dewormer for the horses and dogs. I did get the girls to eat two bits of the fresh herb last night and they got all the leftover dinner.

My reading also suggested making an extract of it and using that to wash dogs and other animals. So we think we might try that to see if it can help prevent ticks. It would be a whole lot cheaper than frontline. Even if it only extends how long a frontline treatment works. We are also wondering if that might help with the lice problem that the horses get every spring and fall. We have already had to use a chemical treatment on Queenie, because she was scratching so much from the lice. The ponies have more problems than the other horses because they have such thick manes and heavy winter coats. It is impossible to eliminate the lice completely, so I think deer must bring them back every year.

So that was yesterday's adventure in using our herbs. In future, we'll be doing more research into herbs before we use them.