Left-over meals.

As in, What do I do with this leftover tomato-turkey soup that no one will touch?

Well, I re-purposed it in a tex-mex chili, using up the last of the turkey I had to cook because the freezer died.

And the chili was great.

But I haven’t figured out how to post that recipe:

Saute one large chopped onion. Add grated garlic, and finish sauteing.

Stir in one quart chopped turkey, along with 1T cocoa powder, 1T cumin and 1T Chili powder. and a 7oz. can of green chilies.

Stir a bit to toast and highlight the flavors.

Add 2 quarts leftover savory tomato soup (?!), a few ladles of diced tomatoes in juice (eyeball your favorite ratio) and salt to taste.

Simmer 30 minutes, then add cooked (e.g. canned. In my case, again, leftover) beans and simmer till warm and/or folks is ready to eat.

One reasonable question is how I made the savory tomato soup in the first place. (I remember using Garam Masala seasoning). But that is a bit of a moot question, since no one liked it. (Even Jay didn’t take seconds, so it had to have had issues.)

But the chili tasted great, and I canned the leftovers for quick meals in the future.

Only trouble (and I can live with it) is the recipe’s not exactly what you can call “reproduceable.”

And it seems (from my brief acquaintance) that’s the goal of food blogs.

Well, maybe I’ll start a new trend.

(I hope really soon to start back up with the menu-building posts– because it could mean *I’m* back on a menu.)

We decided to sell Cream. It was really hard for Natasha and me.

The one consolation we could offer her is that she now has her very own rabbit. It is the last silver fox (cross) we have, and Natasha named her Black Beauty. We’ve given Natasha full ownership (along with care) and Natasha will be able to keep BB as long as she lives, if that’s her desire. She just has to maintain the present level of care.

We sold all of the non-Orpington chickens (and the extra rooster) last week, and I’ve sold a total of 14 meat rabbits so far, for breeding stock.  I expect to sell one more trio this week, along with the angora buck (and I’d let the mama-A go to, if I could find an interested buyer).

I have a few small baskets of angora from what I’ve collected over the last year, so I think one will do fine to keep me as busy as I want to be with wool.

It was a relief to find critters leaving (nearly) as fast as we wanted, and then this week I went out to feed the chickens and found a slaughterhouse.

A marten had gotten in and torn out the throats of every bird in the place.

Thankfully for me, three of the hens broke out; they were the only ones to survive (but they mean I still have home grown eggs so I can still eat eggs). I stayed up till after 3a.m. Thursday morning, trying to work through salvaging all the meat.

Jay skinned them and passed them on to me, as he does with the rabbits, except these carcasses he didn’t gut when he skinned them.

Took me about 30 minutes each, on average, but that’s somewhat deceptive, since the first one took me an hour (!) with set-up and everything. I definitely got faster as I went along, but still prefer rabbits for cutting up.

It would be fair to ask me what I like best for eating, but I haven’t been up to experimenting for about a month, so I’ve been sticking to the tried-and-true set: mostly moose and turkey.

All these birds we canned, since we don’t have freezer space; and since I had 9 birds that meant I had a lot of bones to boil.  Thursday I had three pots of stock going at once. Friday, two. Today there’s still one going, but that’s just because I’ve been busy with other things today, so I never turned the crockpot off.

And all that canning means I’ve used up all my jars. Floored me. I’d stopped buying the cheep ones when I found them because I felt greedy or something. But seeing how much we used with just. meat, I can’t imagine how much we’d use if we actually got into gardening and preserving that harvest. It’s pretty intimidating.

The kids are mostly recovered. They got to participate in their dress rehearsal and performance Saturday evening, which was a huge answer to prayer.

Jay was out pretty much all of today (Sunday), and I’ve been going through the house/cabin/shed/garage looking for outgrown books games and toys for the annual homeschool curriculum fair tomorrow.

I told the organizer I’d take three tables. The Subaru is absolutely *crammed* with boxes and stuff.  I’ve got a few craft and projects I’m letting go (if anyone will buy them): beading, polymer clay/sculpting and my B&W (film) printing stuff.

This I expect to let go very cheap, and there’s a part of me that’s very sad about that, but it’s been sitting around for almost 10 years, and (if there’s any value left at all) it’s for a very narrow audience anyway.

In addition, Elisha’s birthday is tomorrow, but his party isn’t until the 19th (*that* was hard to harangue/explain), since there were so many things already going on in May.

He’s picked a “costume party” theme (though he keeps changing what kind of cake he says he wants), and I’m making him a Robin Hood costume for his birthday present.

Since we don’t really “do” Halloween (for more-or-less these reasons still), I’m always looking for other opportunities to let them dress up and/or enjoy costumes.

I got his whole costume pinned up during the dress rehearsal Friday night, so cutting is the next step. And (according to the pattern) with the sewing only taking a couple hours, two weeks should be plenty of time to have things ready…

Mostly I’m looking forward to things leveling out.

I want to teach the kids how to manage the laundry (sorting, folding), and coach them better about keeping their spaces picked up. Turns out the animals didn’t really take that much time, so even downsizing this dramatically (or involuntarily) doesn’t lighten my load much.

Lord-willing once we’re all back on our feet we can work out a balance that’ll let my growing kids learn to carry a bit more.

Melody’s fever seems to have finally stayed away (after four days of persistence), and everybody’s been pretty listless on both ends of the fever (N and E have had symptoms as well.  And it’s been interesting to observe how feeling yucky really does make you act yucky. It’s a backwards sort of nice that I can say, Woah, this is really out of character!)

Melody went through an entire square box of tissues Saturday. Elisha and Natasha picked up her cough by Sunday evening, and until yesterday (Tuesday) Elisha’s the only one who could hang on to energy.

Sunday I stayed home with the younger two. Elisha was a great helper, and Melody got dressed, which was an accomplishment compared to Saturday.

Monday both girls held their low fevers and needed lots of holding by Mama. Which was fine, accept when people want to eat, too.

Conveniently, when they’re feeling this crummy, they don’t seem to care as much about food.

So let me just give a quick two week update, since a slow one would take two hours.

Jay was gone for one of the last two weeks. While he was gone:

• I got an average of 6 hours of sleep/night (leaving me with a 14-hour deficit).
• Both our baby goats got sick.
• Buttercup (a rabbit) had a litter of *9* kits (though she was down to 7 three days later. Those all are doing well.)
• I forked the compost from the outdoor coup and filled it with chickens.
• One of our chest freezers died, and I had to do a Tetras/canning scramble to save as much as I could from the meat freezer.

On the upside the freezer-death happened right before the weekend my mom had offered to keep the kids, so my marathon work sessions didn’t have to fit around the needs of the kids. I just didn’t have the time/brain cells to do as much novel work as I’d hoped to accomplish.

Cream (the white faced doe kid) was close to skin and bones and she came back with a few days of focused care, but Friday night (two days after Jay got home) her twin, Sugar, died. It wasn’t really expected, since Cream had looked so much worse than her sister and recovered.

So now we’re left with the question of whether to get a second goat (because all the writing talks about how goats don’t do well alone), or to sell Cream so she’s not living as an only-goat.

We’d rather keep Cream, it’s the second goat that’s tricky.  The kids- all 4- and I went to see a Nigerian doe today, but “Molly” was much too rough and aggressive with Cream, so we had to pass. (Made me *so* grateful we’d brought Cream and knew before we brought a new goat home that they weren’t compatible.)

~ ~

The snow is almost completely melted here, Jay’s moat is doing it’s job just as it should, and we’re beginning to simplify our life here in other ways.

I’ve been looking at my choices and thinking about how much of what I do is externally motivated and how much intrinsically motivated.  I realized I was doing too much just because it was “sensible” and “could pay off later,” but that preparation was reducing my margin now, and margin is what I need, more than I need (say) rabbits that people might pay more for later.

In this case I’m referring to showing and keeping records.  The level of detail and engagement required to do them well eliminates my breathing room for things that matter more to me: like reading and meal planning.

Yeah. Reading and meal-planning matter more to me than a “potential” side business– especially considering the low level of payoff that looks to be available.

Anyway, we decided we’re not interested in stretching beyond what our family needs/is using, so we’re in the process of selling off extra/older rabbits.  We just finished selling all the mixed-breed chickens, today, so in a couple of weeks if we still have hens that want to go broody we should be able to let them and still end up with consistent layers.

We still want the eggs (since store-bought make me ill), and the “ethical” meat, but I’m sick of how much I’ve been trying to manage.

Along those same lines, I don’t anticipate a garden to be in our plans for this summer.  If it happens it happens, but I think for now we’ll just work at stabilizing our ballance. Once we find it.

(I’ve got other projects/ideas percolating– primarily having to do with food– and that’s where I want to spend “extra” energies.)

No promises any more. I’ll give what I can, and no more.  There will always be more to teach and learn than I can be a part of, and accepting that is part of accepting reality.

Admittedly, hard for me, but I’m learning.

“The tale of Melody’s bed.”

“My bed is the best bed in the world. It has a pillow which came from Grandma’s house. It has a dinosaur blanket on it. Like I said, my bed is the best in the world.”

She read it aloud to me, which helped me translate it for you. This is the longest stint of voluntary writing she has yet done, and she was very pleased with it.

Her face and body language as she shared it reminded me irresistibly of a puppy, tail like a propeller, nearly jumping our of her skin with joy.

BTW, this is what school looks like at my house. When I’m not there with them (say, reading aloud) they have their set of workbooks they plow through.

I’ve been very thankful for how motivated they are by workbooks: being able to say they’ve done X# of pages, or that they’re this close to the end of a chapter spurs them on better than any of my praise or requirements.

And it seems to help, too, when they have similar subjects.  I can be frustrated by their attention to fairness, but it creates a mellow endurance for work they’re not interested in, and I am thankful for that.

~ ~ ~

Yesterday, for Jay’s birthday, he took they day off and flew our family to Tok in his mom’s 172 (it lives at the Fairbanks airport and is the plane Jay used when he learned to fly). Once we landed back in Fairbanks Jay and I had a forehead-smack moment where we realized we hadn’t taken *any* pictures on the trip.

The most, erm, adventurous part of the trip was when we were still 30 minutes from landing in Tok and Melody let us know she *needed* to go. “I don’t think I can hold it!” she said after a couple increasingly urgent updates.

I was braced for a wet plane (“How bad can it be? I guess we’ll find out.”) when Jay thought of using her almost-empty water bottle and the “pee stick” we carry to simplify travel.

“Stand up,” Jay told her, fishing out the elements of his plan and passing them to me.

“But I’m buckled,” she answered in a tiny voice.

“Telling you to stand is giving you permission,” he explained, getting back to flying the plane.

So yet again (this is not the first time) we were very thankful for this nifty little invention that lets the girls skip squatting.

And I was very, very thankful we had the option, because (sorry for the TMI, but it caps the story:) she filled her water bottle and Jay had to empty a second one out the window so than hers wouldn’t overflow.

Really don’t think I would have wanted to deal with that much volume loose on the plane…

And we got a good story out of it anyway.

For many years this has been enshrined in my mom-phrase, “Don’t. cause. problems.”

The idea is that many people (and children most-blatantly) find their ability to affect the emotional (or physical) state of other people to be quite entertaining.

It’s closely related to the delight of the small child who realizes s/he can knock over a tower of blocks.  After the initial shock, interminable repetition becomes hilarious and a delight: I, aware of my finiteness in this vast world I do not understand, nevertheless have the power to effect change!

Or something equally giggle-inducing.

So, desiring a maintenance-pattern that requires the least amount possible of my direct intervention, I taught my children from a very young age that this form of entertainment was a barely a degree more acceptable than swinging the cat by his tail.

The resulting problem is one I can see in our society as well:

When people become used to living in a neutral environment, where conflict is not blatant, anyone who makes life harder seems bad.

I am agitated, therefore they are provoking.

 ~ ~ ~

Earlier this week, while I was out in the barn, there was a small earthquake in the house. Natasha, in a blanket-sleeper and boots, staggered (having just awakened) out to tell me that Melody wouldn’t stop screaming.

Apparently Elisha (on his bed) began making a noise that Melody (on her bed) found “annoying” and he would not stop come pleas or high decibels.

In negotiating the situation, I asked if he had been following her around with the noise, and found out, no, they had just (both) gone back to their room after breakfast.

~ ~ ~

Because Elisha was the one causing Melody’s discomfort, she assumed he was the one that needed to change. But they were both in places they were allowed to be, doing nothing intrinsically bad.

In fact, both children frequently enjoy making random noises together, kicking the air and creating competing rhythms.

~ ~ ~

Once you’re beyond the tower-tumbling stage most things get more complicated, including relationships.  There are things people can do to make your life harder– steal your parking space, buy the last movie ticket to the showing everyone wanted to attend– but either of these could have nothing to do with you.

I think we can agree that most people being inconvenient are merely selfish, not provoking. Because when we inconvenience others it’s generally because we’re not thinking of them at all. Or we’re thinking of ourselves more.

We can take the reminder for what it is (out of many possibilities we can be reminded that mankind still has not evolved to a higher plane. *sigh* Get with the program people.), and give both them and ourselves grace for our continued imperfection.

Basically, in general, I’m saying get-over-it-and-be-the-grown-up.

There are many times when overlooking the rude behavior of someone just makes everybody’s life smoother (the barista will probably serve the man who cut in line, because it’s the fastest way to get to the rest of the customers).

But there are exceptions, too.

I categorize these in terms of safety, and cost.

Someone driving recklessly in a school zone isn’t just “inconveniencing” the mothers who are there to pick up their kids; reckless drivers are also putting other people at risk.

On the other hand it may be perfectly safe (or it may not) to have separate schools for people of different ancestry, but the cost to their humanity, dignity and even quality of life proves enormous.

This is where I believe the government has every right and responsibility to step in. This is the government’s job: to protect its people, from one another if necessary.

This authority, rightly applied, makes it more possible for ordinary citizens to overlook the average rudeness they encounter. If there is a pattern in place, assuring citizens that grievous issues will not be ignored, it creates a setting in which to make distinctions. Some issues are small, either suffered or dealt with alone, other issues could require the intervention of a higher authority.

~ ~ ~

Sometimes a bit of rest or maturity is all we need to take an offense in stride. But in Melody’s case both were lacking.  The existence of irritation was enough to make it personal.  So we talked about strategies.

How do we deal with an offense from a person we can’t (ethically) control?

Here’s the 3-step strategy that was impressed on me around the age of six (it may or may not have had something to do with a playground incident…):

1. Ask the person to stop. (If s/he won’t go to Step 2.)
2. Move to a physically different space (yes, this may seem like surrender– letting the other person “win”– but weigh it by what is most important to you. Melody, if you really want quiet, not just to be in control, it’s worth the effort). If the offender follows or otherwise makes it plain that you are now the focus of his/her unwelcome attention, this is what authority-figures are for.  This is the time it’s a good idea to
3. Come get Mom.

This is the order to work in. You don’t start with #3. That’s whining, and it wastes Mom’s time. If #1 works, you don’t have to move on to step #2, etc.

And, maybe most important of all when working with kids, they get to practice problem-solving and negotiating skills on their own.

In all of this, I assured Melody that she did not have to change her feelings, but that it wasn’t her job (and she did not have the authority) to change Elisha, either.

I ruled for Elisha.

He got to keep dip-dip-dipping.

• The reason the amendment efforts exist is because there is currently no legal precedent assuring that parents (rather than other entities) have any say over their children.  Only historical precedent.

(And, as with historical precedent of marriage defined as between one man and one woman, courts have begin ruling that historical precedent is not strong enough for force of law.)

• There is most-definitely a need for some kind of protection/articulation of our rights as parents (to direct the upbringing of our own offspring).
• The reason PRA supporters are working on a constitutional amendment is in direct response to the threat (and I do not use that word lightly) of the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child.
• You can click on the link to see why many parents are concerned about the CRC becoming international law, but for the purposes of this discussion I will just say that as an international “treaty,” the CRC (if ratified by Congress) would supersede any state-level efforts to affirm parental rights.

This is the reason for beginning with a constitutional amendment: the resistance to CRC must be at the national level.

All that said, I still don’t fault NRLC for their stance. (More than one IRL person has challenged me on my defense of NRLC’s objection, and I added these facts to to show readers PRA is not beign unreasonable either: that this is all bigger than two worthy organizations not seeing eye-to-eye).

I really believe you should read all the links: the necessity of the amendment, the details of the concerns NRLC expressed in their letter, and consider (this is the hardest, most-frightening, thing to me) how the “wrong” judges interpreting the amendment– however it is worded– could redefine a national approach to parenting.

That is, all legal cases dealing with an amendment would be national issues, with the outcome affecting all parents in the United States.

Call me a pessimist, but all the assurances that no reasonable person could read this wrong (and I agree with this), cannot assure me that we live in reasonable times.

I love logic. It’s a nice break from the real world.

In the end, I truly don’t know what to hope for.  I want a parental rights amendment. But I want the government to have the teeth to perform its God-ordained protective role.

And if the government can use the PRA “exception” language to protect a Muslim girl from genital mutilation, (stepping in to protect the child from her parents’ practice/application of deeply-held religious beliefs…) I cringe at the same time, wondering how long it will take an activist judge to step beyond physical protection to emotional, relational, or educational protection.

Ultimately, having the amendment will provide a context within which to begin and define these battles, but I still tremble to consider how unsure their outcome must be.

Perhaps part of the disconnect comes in from the types of people each organization works with every day. HSLDA and PR work with good parents…parents who really have the best interests of their kids in mind, who want to educate and protect them. NRLC deals daily with parents who want the legal right to kill their children. So of course PR is saying, “We have to give parents the right to protect their kids, because that’s what parents want to do!” And of course NRLC is saying, “Are you kidding? Parents want to kill their children! We have to protect the children!”

~

Having read both perspectives, I understand where NRLC is coming from. Amending the Constitution is VERY serious, a much bigger deal than changing state law or even federal law. Because the PRA would be enshrined in the Constitution, it’s imperative that it protect the unborn. Giving parents total authority over the lives of their unborn children, in the constitution, would ultimately be very damaging to the pro-life cause.

It was not on the Menu.

All the left-overs were either eaten, left at a friend’s house earlier in the week, or left out (*sniff*) because they weren’t in a see-through container. So for lunch I had to make something from scratch.

Back in the summer when we got our massive amount of salmon from Chitna I learned how to can fish.

I was impressed at how well it went, and hope to can a higher percentage this year. Everything we like best– like this dish– is ready to put together so fast with the canned stuff.

And the best part is any bones left in the fillets are mushified by the canning process. (Not so with the commercially canned stuff, or maybe they just start with bones that are too big.)

This is my GF version of the tuna noodle casserole I had growing up, so if you don’t have a pantry full of salmon you can use a couple cans of tuna, or any other cooked meat you’re wanting to use up.

1. Start by heating your noodle water (I always forget to start here and lunch takes that much longer. Planned right this all sorta finishes at once.)
2. Make your cream-of sauce
3. Add 5 or six cups GF pasta to the water whenever it’s hot & follow directions/your preferences to tell when it’s done (I do about a cup dry per person, since I don’t like left-over GF pasta)
4. Mix the cooked noodles with your meat (I use a 1 pint jar salmon or two cans of tuna), one cup of the sauce (save the rest for another recipe)
5. Stir in 2 cups shredded cheese

Yes, this is just glorified macaroni & cheese.  And it’s one I feel much better about serving my kids than the dayglo orange variety.

And no complaints from their end either.

“You can serve this is me *any* time, Mom,” Natasha gushed. “Even breakfast.”

“Me too!” Elisha agreed.

So I’m pleased to confirm another winner.

This is the menu our family is currently eating from.

If you want to print it out on one page, specify landscape orientation and under scaling choose *Fit all columns on one page.*

It is a five-week grid of real food, mostly from our freezer/pantry, mostly recipes I have made before (One exception include a page number so I know where to find the recipe).

Over the following (many?) weeks I plan to share the recipes for my staples (at least 10-12 basic meals, remember?), and maybe some general stuff about being comfortable in the kitchen.

Expect it to be  a slow process, but we’ll get through the elephant eventually.

~ ~ ~

Here are the recipes from this menu written/referenced already on the blog:

• Pancakes
• Potato Bake
• White Chili
• Sandwich bread
• Sloppy Joes

Because we’re already part way through the menu not everything will be posted in order, but since some things are just simpler or more familiar than others, they may get used (and therefore photographed and posted) out of order.

Just think of it as a real-life example of how a menu/meal plan can be used: a guideline, a suggestion, a gift not to think about one. more. thing.