Lily's Night Out

Lily is getting to be so much more muchier. She helps more, she talks more, she does more. Everything is so much more.

Every week she and I take an art class together. This one on one time has been great for us, so much so that we decided that one other night each week we should take a walk together or take the boat out at dusk. We have had lovely talks. This week she asked if I could help her create a vlog for her to narrate and demonstrate certain tasks for other kids. She wants to start with how to tie a hook on a line, choose a worm, and fish for catfish. Cool idea, eh? Look for that soon.

With responsibility comes privilege and slowly we are figuring this part out too.

I am so glad I get to spend my days with her. She is such a neat kid with big ideas and dreams and imagination! At art class we were asked to make dessert sculptures. Everyone made cupcakes, pies, cake slices, cookies......Lily made a bowl of pudding and added snails to it. That's my girl.

She's always thinking and doing her own thing. She's got that spark and does not see the need to conform to what the other kids at the table are doing. How do I preserve and protect that gift? Nurture it? That question keeps me up at night.

She also asked to take over washing lunch dishes. Yes! Score! However, she'll only do them on her terms. She has to sit on the counter and she wants to use the sink full of soapy water method, not the always running hot water method I use. She says that I am wasting water. True.

Lily is a complicated girl though, she feels so much more love and passion and so much more anger when she's mad. She is a five alarm fire, like this song goes.

Soon she will be nine. I have had her in my heart nearly all my life. She is my dream come true, my prayers answered. Lily is the child that taught me to be a mother and continues to teach me everyday.

I look forward to celebrating nine with her, baking her a peach pie and making soup for dinner. I look forward to reading books, making art, and singing loudly in the car. This year she wants to learn cartography and navigation. Easy enough!

 I still have not figured out the special gift from mama that I give her every year. Suggestions welcome!

The Hungry Caterpillar (aka Tobacco Hornworm)

Lots of children catch caterpillars, lots of families let them keep them in a tank. We do this every year and they often hatch them to butterflies or moths.

What is special about this time isn't the activity. This is first year Isaac has been involved in the activity. Sometimes his physical delays cause us to forget that he is almost three. He is almost three years old. That is so amazing! This day in the photos he spent about 20 minutes watching the caterpillars, he lay on the floor next to the tank, pointing and babbling and cooing while I made lunch. He would walk in and check on them a couple times an hour through the day. He gave them bits of his snacks through the top hole. He even reached in an pet them a few times. The girls set one on his leg and it scared him a little, so they backed off of that.

It was amazing.

In general it is so easy to underestimate the working mind of people with physical disabilities. Holly often reminds us that Isaac is a big boy trapped in a baby's body. He can read. He can count. He can think about things that he can't ask questions about and so we don't think to offer explanations. He is curious.

We also started sign language class last week and it is going very well. He's picking up alphabet signs faster than I am and really loves the music. Lily loves it too, but I think she also enjoys being his assistant in learning at home. His verbal language is coming along too and since he can read about 20 words, we think, I also started putting up large magnet words on the magnet board. Today I told him to get me the word that means Dada but starts with an F. He brought me FATHER and then kissed it. It was adorable.

This experience this week served as a reminder that Isaac is so much more inside than his little body holds him back from. This is why we push forward to make him stronger, braver, and more patient each day. In doing so we are also becoming stronger, braver, and more patient with each other and others.

Farmhouse Kitchen, What's On The Table Tonight

First course: Bacon on a plate.
Anyone helping prepare the meal, set the table, and catch up on dishes got to snack on bacon.
It is a pretty big motivator at our house, especially considering that we have been out of bacon for six weeks. I had to go to Piper's where we have inventory and buy it. Ha!

Second course: Lamb ribs with cider and crabapple honey glaze with spices, salt, and pepper, Snoop Dogs Mashed potatoes courtesy of Martha Stewart, and buttered corn. Pan fried beef ribeye was also on the table. I'll see if I can figure out where I wrote down the glaze and post it later this week.

I wanted to make African Pork Ribs, but we are so low on inventory that I was out of those too. Crazy.  I was worried that lamb ribs would be tiny and not meaty, but I was completely and utterly wrong about that.

Dessert: Peach Pie. Simple Peach Pie. I made a standard All American double crust, the speedy way in the food processor, took 3 pints of home canned peaches (two were brandied peaches), drained them, added 3 T of cornstarch, 2 T raw sugar,  mixed with peaches, cut out strips for a lazy lattice, and a sprinkle of cinnamon on top of the crust. Oven at 425 until bubbly and brown.

 

I realised that the thing that was off in my pies was the spice. These peaches have so much sweet and flavour that they do not need more sugar and do not need any spices to shine. Shine this pie does, simple, brightly flavoured, the Missouri peaches really brighten the farmhouse kitchen and THIS is why people drive from the coasts, weary, to rest at my table, fork in hand. The world needs more pie like this.

Recipe in detailed pictures to come. I'll have to make another pie. Maybe for Saturday's Apple Pressing party. Cheers!

Super Hero Soup (Hamhock and Beans in a French Pot)

 Little bit of a story first, my kids first looked at their bowls of bean soup with disdain and distrust. They like kidney beans, but all these funky beans, all in one pot? No way. So, I started eating one bean at a time, sharing the back story and the magic of each of the six beans.

1) The ability to sing like an opera star! Ahhhhhhh! LALALALALA! Figaro!
2) Jumping as high as a monkey!
3) Dancing forever!
4) The antidote to magic non stop dancing
5) The ability to sneak like a ninja
6) Super strength silly beans!


The carrots get eaten for night vision, the onion for stinky monster breath, the ham for protein and brain power and strong bones, celery for sonic hearing, and.....apples for good health (protection against monster sneezes).

The gobbled the soup. They asked for seconds. Dinner was hilarious. Easy. Frugal.

Without further ado, I present Super Hero Soup!!!!

 Start by running hot tap water, fill a bowl or pot, and cover the beans in the water by 3x the depth and then cover, set aside.

When they are ready to use they take up all of the water. I let them soak all day until an hour or two before the meal time.

In a separate pot, a crock pot or an oven roaster, place a hamhock and sprinkle with seasoning of choice. Salt, spices, and a bay leaf. Do not forget the bay leaf, it is very important.

 Add 3 stalks of chopped celery. I like to use the leafy greens of celery too. Next 3-4 large carrots chopped into bite size. 1 large onion, 2 medium tomatoes, and 1 gala apple. Any sourish apple will work, but I like gala or braeburn the best.

 Fill the pot with water and roast at 220 degrees Fahrenheit for 8 hours. Low on a crockpot, if that's what you are using.

A good hamhock will have a lot of good, deeply flavoured meat. It is hard to get to when making cuts, but falls of the bone when slow cooked.

 

This one had two full pounds of perfect, tender ham.

 

About 2 hours before meal time, drain, rinse, and then add the soaked beans.

Continue to cook until the beans are perfect and tender. 

This makes about sixteen servings. I freeze what our family of five doesn't eat. 

Recipe: Super Hero Soup

1 2lb hamhock

4 carrots

3 celery stalks

1 large onion

1 apple

2 tomatoes

water

2 cups of bean mix

seasoning and salt

bay leaf

Soak the beans while the meat and veggies simmer all day. 

Cook meat and veggies and spices in a pot of water for about 8 hours at 220 degrees Fahrenheit or in  a crockpot on low. Add the soaked and drained beans 2 hours before serving and finish cooking.

Serve with a hearty French bread or cornbread.

Jump around and be super silly while eating dinner. Savour the smiles, laughter, and sweet joy of children.