Pumpkin, Pumpkin everywhere!

 It is not often that we get a pumpkin anymore or try to grow them even- we havent had anyone to help carve them in the past few years, and we haven't had any trick or treaters either - especially now with the Covid going on.  We haven't had much luck growing them either out here in the Burg- just not enough grow days that are warm enough. With the big Blue Full Moon on Halloween I felt like I needed a pumpkin this year!  It also happens to be my Father in Laws birthday that day so there always needs to be a slightly spooky element to the day.  Just a little something to have fun on Halloween and a birthday!

None of my people claim to like very "sweet" things so birthday cake is out - he won't eat it, but the Krispy Kreme doughnut holes in the cup are perfect to put in the freezer and then he can have just a "dabble do ya" whenever he wants!  The Hubby is also not a fan of Pumpkin Spice anything (twigs and berries he calls it)!

(not my picture - it's from the Krispy Kreme site)

They are also not huge eaters of anything overly "pumpkin"!  I always feel bad about having a pumpkin that never gets a use other than roasting the delicious seeds and eating them like popcorn on Halloween night.  Another reason I hadn't got a pumpkin in prior years.

So this year I got the dads tiny pumpkin and I also got one for Hubby and I - a "baker Pumpkin" it was called.

 

We got some tasty seeds out.  Actually a lot of tasty seeds!  We put a little olive oil on them, a little salt and pepper and we roasted them on a cookie sheet for about 20 minutes at 400 degrees - stir once!  Forgot to take a picture of them!

After we got the seeds taken care of and we enjoyed the pumpkin for a day or two, we baked it up into a delightful dinner!  Don't use a candle in your pumpkin if you plan to eat it - use Christmas twinkle lights instead - they put off a nice glow without making it unhealthy to eat your pumpkin.

Baked Stuffed Pumpkin

1 small Baker Pumpkin - hollowed out and cleaned - rub with olive oil

1 Lb Hamburger - we used a mix of beef and pork sausage

1 C Cooked seasoned rice - I like the dirty rice from Zatarans but any will work even plain

1/2 C Diced onion

1 large Garlic Clove - finely diced

2 Tbsp Tomato Paste

1/4 C parmesan cheese

2 Tsp microplaned jalapeno (dice it fine if you dont have a microplaner)

1 Tsp Italian Season (if you dont use spiced rice)

Brown the burger and set aside in a bowl.  Saute the onion and the garlic for a few minutes to get that good flavor out - the onions should be a little bit soft.  Mix with the meat in the bowl and add the other ingredients.  Mix it well and then stuff that pumpkin!  Pack it pretty inside pretty good but dont overfill too much.

Place the stuffed pumpkin in narrow baking dish - I used a bread pan and it worked well.  Place the lid on the pumpkin and bake at 375 for 1 hour or until a fork test tells you that the pumpkin is cooked.  The pumpkin skin will be tougher than a zuchinni might be but its still tasty!  Serve with a little more parmesan cheese.

Enjoy!

We served ours with roasted turmeric Cauliflower as our side.  Easy - just put your cauliflower florets in a baking pan (again I used a bread pan), drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with 1 tsp of turmeric and a little salt and pepper.  Roast in the oven covered for anout 30 minutes at 375.  We put ours in about half way through the pumpkinn cook and it worked great!

I hope you had a fantastic Halloween and that you have just the right amount of Pumpkin and Spice for the rest of the season!  

Be Well - Blessed Be!

Everything Changes - Like it or not!

We have a New Normal at the school these days, and at home too in a different way.  At school, there is a sort of masked chaos, that is often uncontrolled and rivals that of a the "Friday the 13th" style theme park! Kids and grown ups everywhere, and some of them in and out of the office all day long with horror stories that would rival Flowers in the Attic!  Everyone with a mask on!  Like Halloween on steroids. There is no quiet space, not for grownups and not for kids and it breaks some of our people.  We are open, we are closed and we are working harder than ever to educate kids and keep them safe and healthy.  My office looks like I have set up a hockey rink - lined with plexiglass dividers so that I am socially distant and I can take my mask off once in a while.  I hate this change, and that it changes sometimes daily, and there is no time to adjust or sometimes no time to breathe and just be!

                   The plexiglass dividers that envelope my office space now.

Sports have been started, stopped, changed, started again, and stopped.  Our people are stressed and confused about what is real and what is not, and by the ideas that swirl around from the media and the rest of the world, and by the two men who want to run the world fighting and scrapping like school yard boys on television and internet in front of the world.  They are sad too, about the things they are missing so that we can get through this.

The lonely "socially distanced" parking lot.

My bosses have some reminders that they send out at the beginning of each week that I really love and try to follow, and it looks something like this;

    "We are attempting to do something that has never been done before,

    We will do the best we can with the safety of our students and staff at the forefront.

    We will adjust as needed to increase our chances of success."

I think the intent is to remind us to give each other grace as we try to navigate the weirdness that is COVID and that has been our "New Normal" since November of 2018 when the earthquake struck and we all had to pivot and move under one roof.  We had staff members leave because our school became very hard at that point and other schools weren't at that time.

I also add to that; "Our highest and best achievement will be that ALL of our people survive this".  I shudder to imagine if we cannot make this so.  

I also add to "Keep f'ing going!"

(Custom candle that Riley got me for Mothers Day - it's a great reminder)

At home, Reedo has moved out, which makes it really weird for hubby and I - and probably for the him too.  The sounds of the house are different, and it is very quiet!  We are stuck together in the same space often now that we are socially distancing and staying home, especially since it is getting colder now and outside is not so inviting!  In total contrast to the school, we relish the silence most of the time, but sometimes we miss the sounds of our children, and for me even to watch him sleep. To know he is breathing and blissful.  Alive.

We hear and see a lot of postings and radio ads about "Can't take it with you" and "You never see a hearse with a trailer hitch", and other "why are we working so hard for things when we should be having experiences" mantras.  They are all true, but we still, in our world, need a little money, heat and shelter to survive!  We need money to pay for the hearse and the funeral for that matter, and to make sure the kids have a little something left when we are gone.  And, now, in our world, experiences are a little more difficult and a little more stressful.  Especially for some of our at risk families, who may or may not have lost jobs during the pandemic, or who have health risks that cause them to need to be at home most of the time.  Even the experience of grocery shopping has drastically changed.

(Click list shopping cart)

"You can run but you can't hide" - that's one that no one says at the funeral!  But its one that all loss mothers, and actually anyone who has lost a dear loved one seems to experience - moving doesn't help!  My friend Christy tried it, Meemaw tried it, and we have wanted to move about 100 times but we know that it wont help,(we have talked about it often) and our house still feels like home but it is still missing something - and always will.  The kids moving was a way to run, but it still feels like something is missing even at their house for them.  Someone always missing.

What I hear the most from the most of my people is "I HATE COVID!"  When mothers can't go into the hospital with their children for a surgery.  When daughters can't go into the hospital with their mothers/fathers for a surgery.  "I HATE COVID" when special events are cancelled, or when a memorial for a lost child has to be very small or postponed.  When our communities can't come together to uplift a loss mother and father with memories of their sweet child and surround them with love.  I HATE COVID.  When a lonely Veteran cannot make another day in quarantine and makes the ultimate sacrifice himself to end the pain.  I HATE COVID.  

Mrs Barney - the safest gal in the Burg!

We will get through this, one day at a time, the same as I have been doing for the last 4 years.  We are badass for getting out of bed, and we will continue to do so.  We will continue to do the hard things because we CAN do hard things, the Zoom, the classroom and the Zoom both at the same time.  We will wish for an "easy" button that is no where in sight.  We will reach out to our Veterans, our elders, and our at-risk people, and we will reach out to our teachers, caregivers, helpers, and our heroes to make sure that everyone can keep f'ing going.  There is no Highway option.

I hope that you have all that you need and I wish you enough.  Blessed Be!

The Dog Days of Quarantine!

A few weeks ago, I had to quarantine to wait for COVID test results!  It took 5 days!  I'm not a teacher so I couldn't get in the fast lane for results.  So I stayed home.  Normally this is not a problem as I usually have more than enough supplies to get me through anything - quarantine included!

However...... I did NOT have enough dog cookies!  As you can see by the sad pitiful face and the resigned nap slouch, the fur babies were not happy!  Brix (left) would sit and "nudge" my hand while I was trying to do anything and Ripley (right) would just sit in the entry, thinking a cookie would magically appear!  Pitiful!

I remembered some dog treat recipes I had saved from some time ago - just in case! So I got them out and started to fab up a cookie that my pooches would love! It was fortunate for me that someone had given me a bag of whole wheat flour a long time ago, when they discovered that they can't eat it anymore!  Ripley is allergic to seafood/fish, so we have to make sure we have treats that don't have any of that.  Many of the store bought treats have fish oil in them, so home made is best.

I googled to see if stale whole wheat flour would hurt my dogs and found that it in fact will not!  So I googled some more and came up with this recipe:

3 C Whole wheat flour (stale is ok)

3 C. oatmeal

2 eggs

2 C bone broth 

(Pinterest has lots of recipes for this - I use one with Turmeric in it - see below)

1 C. Peanut Butter

I use this bone broth in my cookies.  We actually got this for Reedo as a recovery product and joint assist after one of his surgeries.  I am not putting the brand on it as I don't want them to hate me, but this stuff is awful!  We have not been able to find a way to eat or drink it that it is palatable!  The dogs on the other hand, love it!  This is the only use I will have for this product and when it is gone, I will make my own bone broth.  Pinterest has lots of recipes for bone broth - check it out.

Mix all the delicious doggy goodness up in a bowl.  It will be thick like a heavy cookie dough.

I roll mine into "cookie slice" rolls and refrigerate them for an hour or so.  It isnt mandatory but makes it easier to get your "cookies" uniform.

Slice them into 1/4' rounds (as much as possible) and put on a lined or greased cookie sheet.  If you are using the dough right out of the bowl, drop by teaspoonful onto the sheet and then press flat with the spoon or with a fork like peanut butter cookies.  Bake at 350 degrees for an hour, or until desired crispiness has been developed and your cookies are golden brown!

Store the finished cookies in airtight containers.  If you don't cook all the cookies you can freeze the dough just like regular cookie dough and use when you next need dog treats or are on quarantine and run out!  Im pretty sure my pups will be turning their noses up at store bought cookies from now on - of course! 

When the alarm rang on the first day I was allowed back at work, Brix cried as if to say "What?!? We are doing this again?"  But a good cookie as I went out the door solved that toot sweet!

I hope that you have blessed days with your pets, and may you never run out of cookeis!

Blessed be.

Cherries on Top!!!

 Mom and Daddy have a great orchard!  They have a number of varieties each of apples and cherries and both of those produce like a peach orchard in Georgia!  They even have a plum tree that produces!

This year has been odd in so many ways, but one of the ways is that the cherries outproduced the apples for the first time that I can remember!  

Duchess apple tree with blossoms in spring.

We were a zero apple farm again this year (lots of blossoms but no fruit this time).  We think it may be a fertilizer issue this time - but maybe not!  Could still be a bee problem, even with the mason bee house and the bee attracting plants!  See that post here.  We worked on them some more this year and will see if we can't improve next year again!  Our cherries did produce, and better than last year!  They do a little more each year, and this year since we were home on "lockdown" for most of the summer we were able to keep the critters out of them a little better! 

These are our cherries - this one is the Bali/Evans Cherry that is out front by the lake.  It has produced faithfully for the last three years - especially well since we wire wrapped it so the moose can't get to it!

Check out my post about Mad As a Momma Moose here to read more about that!

Here are the green cherries on the Bali/Evans.  Its so fun to see it and watch them grow and ripen!  We got two quarts of cherries this year - so we doubled production on the cherries!  It still wasn't as many as I wanted to have so I popped on over to Snowfire Gardens and picked to my hearts content!

These are the cherry trees at Mom and Dads!  Absolutely loaded with cherries!  These have already been picked twice also by other people - these are what is left!  These trees are Bali/Evans, Carmine Jewel, and Crimson Passion.  The Bali/Evans are the bigger cherry but not as sweet, the Carmine Jewel are smaller and sweet, and the Crimson Passion are medium on both size and sweet.

I recommend that you make a rule for yourself from the get go - never pick more cherries than you want to pit!  I got about three gallons and pitted them all.

I use a chopstick.  Mom uses a bobby pin to pit, and some of the Aunties use real cherry pitter thing-a-ma-bobs!  I have tried the cherry pitters (hand held) and found that they aren't my favorite way to pit - they kind of tear up the cherry and I like to pit above my bowl so I can save all the juice that drips off too and the pitters kind of splash it around.

Yum!  Winter delightfulness in a Ziplock bag!  This is a quart bag.  I was able to get 6 quart bags with 4 cups each from the cherries I brought home and made a deep dish cherry pie for a Sunday Supper with the kids with the rest.

I saved all the juice from the pitting process and canned it for use during winter also.  Cans up just like apple juice and you an actually do your cherry and apple in the same canner.  I have several recipes that take cherry juice, and we also use it when the Hubby has a gout attack.  It is really delicious mixed with the apple juice and has way, way less sugar than the store bought.

After I had picked my "all I want to pit" amount of cherries, Aunt Cyn  (far left) and Aunt Char (middle) showed up and picked with my mom (right).  Even with all the picking the trees still had an enormous amount of cherries on them!We all laughed when Aunt Cyn said she once went to a U-Pick farm in Washington and "accidently" picked 85 gallons of cherries in two hours!  She was in the zone! The farm owner offered her a job!  

So as you can see - we were a Cherries on top farm this year!  Better than nothing, and we will have both next year Im sure!

I hope that where ever you are, you can have beautiful days, cherries on top, and an apple if you want one!

Be well.  Blessed Be!