Christmas 2012

For the first time I planned a facebook status ahead of time. I had to wait until Christmas Eve to post: "The hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee tonight." I hadn't realized Christmas had become so empty to me until this year when it was full again.

Not even discovering most of our ornaments were covered in mold could dampen my spirit.

My mother's cousin made me the heart ornament when I was very, very young.  I made the reindeer in 4-H in 6th grade and bought the reindeer head at a church craft fair. It was my favorite because it held a Hershey kiss. The tape was my two best Jenny's playing Christmas carols on the piano, ca. 1990.

It was sad to lose them, but happy to put the tree up with the surviving ornaments. Of course they were virtually all glass or ceramic. 

The clatter that woke me that night was more of a crash as the whole thing fell to the floor. I'd like to blame the three cats and a Chip and Dale routine but it was my faulty tree stand engineering. One of the most important ornaments of all broke. 

My grandmother and I painted ceramic ornaments together long before there was a Hobby Lobby and hers were always perfect. This was one of the first. Thankfully it was a clean break, I found the missing part and super glue did the trick. Saved for another year!

Holiday tip: More is better applies to trees. I put up three. Small, medium and large. After the collapsed first try I divided and conquered. Each tree got its own personality just glowed with love, sparkle and light. What more is there to Christmas, anyway?

I learned the meaning of  faith in action from those who came into my life as answered prayers this year. A few people were Clarence to my Mr. Bailey this year, teaching me what Christmas should be. 

These ladies top the list with their compassion, grace and indomitable spirit. When I think about whom I want to emulate, they come to mind. 

Another person new to my life this year reminded me of the joy in giving for giving's sake, not for trying to impress or outspend. I got to play Santa for him, distributing gifts he bought for people he doesn't know just because. 

It inspired me to do the same. Two families got bags full of gifts this year whom I barely know and who don't know it was me. 

Honestly, that brought more joy to me than even baking cookies with these two did (though it was close). 

Their portrayals of Mary and a shepherd came pretty close, too.

After our church service last Sunday we went to theirs to watch her suck on her teeth like an old man (one front tooth gone, one loose, though two front teeth were not all she wanted for Christmas) and him sing Gloria In Excelsis Deo like a miniature Pavarotti.

Monday we took them shopping to buy Christmas presents for their parents (wait, for them? not for us? huh?), ate out, wrapped said presents (their sister is a master bow girl) and made cookies. We don't see them often, but I hope these little moments make an impression. 

Our Christmas Eve service will be memorable, that's for sure. We were asked to come early and be ushers. I wore my new silk scarf that is shiny pale green on one side and shimmery red on the other with lots of fringe.

When we arrived, it was discovered that a dozen people had been asked to be ushers. We sorted that out - I thought - until just before the service started and someone else came and asked us to serve Communion. So when it came time to usher we sat a few beats until we got "the eye" and rushed up to do our job.

When it was Communion time eight of us came forward to do the job of four. On top of that, someone had to be dispatched to the kitchen for more bread and two wine goblets was nowhere near enough.

I served the overflow crowd bread while Jack stood as arm candy at the front of the line. We were all glad it was over, especially when we opened the doors and found it was snowing!

Christmas morning I made Jack his pie-spiced latte and we settle in to savor our tree. He opened lots of packages connected to his big gift (see Home Makeover: Office Edition) and I opened a giant box. A real sheepskin and a set of pearls!

After the tree we picked up someone with nowhere else to go and went to the community dinner at the Catholic school gym for which Jack helped cook nine turkeys. My dessert was this impromptu performance of several hymns by my mustachioed Pavarotti and his merry band (aka members of our church choir).

I am so grateful for so very much this year. Christmas illustrated the sweetness in our new life. So many of our prayers have been answered. As we look to a new year, I pray to be a vehicle for someone else's answered prayers. Amen.

Scenes from our harvest dinner

Dinner out of a can

No, not Campbell's. Not Chunky. Not even Healthy Choice.

A cream can! Remember cream cans? We had them floating around the house as stand-in end tables. Maybe you hoisted them straight from cow to cooler. Now we're likely to see them only in an antique store or in an old barn.

I'm not sure where this one began life. Or even the day. It looked clean, however; and our host is the most immaculate cowboy I know so we had no worries.

This was an experimental dinner, testing out what sounded like a cool, easy way to cook a lot of vegetables for a crowd. I was wary. Very wary. So hairy-eyeball wary, in fact, that I suggested they scrap the vegetable idea altogether. I know. Me. The ex-vegetarian. But come on - we're talking about a crowd of cowpokes. The beans, beef and sourdough would keep them pleased as punch. A cowpunch. (Ha! Sorry; I amuse myself.)

Sometimes I amuse a cowpunch, too.

We sat and watched the pot boil for a while. This wasn't as boring as it sounds, though. We had a penny to watch!

See, the only way we could tell that the veggies had begun to boil was a tiny stream of steam. Try seeing a stream of steam.

See it?

Yeah? Well, you have better vision than we do.

So Jack's idea was to plop a penny on top of the tiny air vent hole. When the steam pressure built up enough, he said, the penny would move.

My, but my eyeballs are getting hairy.

We sat on old molasses tubs around the fire (did I mention it was nearly 90 degrees outside?)and pretended to get caught up while each of us sneaked a peek at the penny.

The anticipation was fierce, lemme tell ya.

Eventually it happened and we all squealed. Ok, maybe just I squealed. Anyway, the grub was good. 

For those interested in the specifics, the pot contained 5 pounds of red potatoes, 1 head of green cabbage, 2 red onions, a bag of frozen corn on the cob, some Tony Chacheres seasoning and a little water. Half of it fed 9 of us with several trips for seconds. It took around 45 minutes to boil sitting on a pipe stuck in the embers of an elm wood fire.

Bon Appétit, or as we say around here, Good Eats!

Hi to you, too

A good friend of ours who loves animals was walking through a parking lot recently and spotted two dogs in the back of a truck who desperately wanted to say hello.

One dog was a Jack Russell terrier and the other was a Welsh Corgi. They wiggled and jumped and generally expressed their appreciation for his visit. He greeted them with a pat on each head and said, "Hi, Jack. Hi, Cory."

Semantics

During the last post I wrote about visiting friends of ours in their calving shed. It was my first visit, but not Jack's. The last time he was there he was presented with a delicious meal of lamb and beef ribs. He ate like he was at a Renaissance Fair, which grease running down his grinning cheeks. (Maybe I exaggerate. Maybe.)

A few delicious bites in, Jack looked over and said that if I were there I'd be insisting on vegetables.

Our friend jumped up and hopped to the kitchen. "You're right - I forgot to fry the sausage!"

Last I checked...   yep, still true:

Putting two and two together

We had dinner with friends the other night in their calving shed. Isn't that where you choose to dine?

This place is impressive. It is nicely outfitted with a sleeping loft, full bathroom and a woodstove, plus a kitchen with a wall of bookshelves lined with veterinary supplies. They are such a nice couple; we enjoy visiting with them as often as possible.

The main course was steak (of course). Grass-fattened delicious steak fried in its own tallow. That led to discussions about the taste of ranch-raised (grass-fattened) beef vs. beef from the store (corn-fattened at a feedlot). That brought us to how smart it would be for local ranchers to move toward selling grass-finished steers rather than shipping calves off to feedlots to be finished on expensive corn.

In our county, most exports are agricultural products. I forget which is top, but the number one and two are beef calves and hay. Why not put the two together - let the calves grow up here eating that hay and charge more for the value-added product at the other end? Most of Jack's conversations revolve around this lately, so more blog posts will come, I'm sure. Any questions you want him to answer?

More on grass-fed beef:
Stockman Grass Farmer
Time Magazine article
Cameron Ranch

Pardonnez-moi, avez-vous la viande bovine congelée?

Another consequence of living in this beautiful land far away from “civilization” is that it is well, far away. Generally we like living apart, but what we enjoy being apart from is the congestion, strip malls and claustrophobic homogeneity. It is less fun to be so far from friends and family.
Last week I realized today was a holiday and that meant a three-day weekend – one with enough time to visit a friend I hadn’t seen in many months. It is a six-hour drive in good weather and snow was forecast but I went anyway.
I drove for six hours Saturday, spent the night and drove seven hours home on Sunday in and out of snowstorms. But it was worth it to see them and spend time with their baby girl.
And what did I bring as a thank-you for hosting me? A plant? A nice box sweets? A basket of decorative goodies? A book?
Nope.
A cooler full of beef.
Maybe I do need to spend some more time in civilized society after all.

Doggone it

IMG_0268
Originally uploaded by coralinad

Let me introduce our friend, the Colonel. You can't tell very well here, since this photo shows more of his personality than him, per se, but he looks just like Buffalo Bill. At least that is what people from Wyoming say. People from Kentucky say the resemblance is more along the lines of Colonel Sanders. Either way, his signature begins with Col.

Colonel has been staying here with us for a few months between jobs. He has been a great hand around the ranch, especially with Jack recovering from his surgery. He and Jack worked together on the Wagon Train a few years ago and he's come every Spring and Fall since.

This morning was his last here and he was determined to get a picture with his Santa hat on Mater (yellow lab - more, tomes, in fact, to come about him) for a picture. You can see how well that went. Anything soft placed anywhere near the muzzle of this yellow fellow instantly becomes a tug of war toy.

That's Sluggo, the wonder Corgi in the foreground. He may get a mention or two later on here as well.

By the way, I had to ask.

"Colonel, did that trim start out white?"

"No," he said. "That's the best fake mink I could find!"