Our Normal Abnormal Life

In many ways, our life hasn't changed much. We milk goats, make cheese, plant the garden, eat at home and don't socialize. This is pretty normal for us. Now that I cannot visit my Mom in the nursing home except through the closed, glass door, which we did for the first time today, we seldom go anywhere. While we were in town today we went to the store. Frank stayed in the vehicle while I went in to get apples. I wore gloves and cleaned my hands with an alcohol soaked wash cloth when I was finished. I took note of some of the store shelves while I was in there. The produce section was fully stocked. There was very little pasta, no spaghetti sauce in jars or cans, and only a few cans of spaghetti-o kinds of foods. There were no dried beans or flour of any kind. Many of the canned vegetables were sparse. I didn't go down any other isles, so that is my report for the grocery store today. It is a smaller, local grocery, not the Wal-Mart type.

A few weeks ago we stocked up on animal feed, filling every container we have to the brim. That will last us well into summer if not beyond. We stocked up on fresh apples and cabbage, too, but that's about the only store bought items we wanted/needed. The new air lock version of making sauerkraut has taken a backseat to the fermenting crock again for now. Even though it will take us months to eat the full crock that is percolating away at the moment, that's okay. It's nice to know we have months of nutritious, probiotic kraut awaiting our dietary needs.

Most of our routines haven't changed, so here is a pictorial of some of the things we're doing during this normal/abnormal life. We're still making cheese and sourdough bread, although we have started making tortillas out of most of the bread dough, just because we like them. We eat them fresh everyday with a little butter and salt. The dough freezes and stores well in the frig, so I can take out what I need for each day, let it come to room temperature on the cabinet, then cook them when we are ready to eat. If we do happen to experience a collapse, making small, daily batches of dough for fresh tortillas will be easier than trying to bake bread or rolls. Just a thought I have had when we transitioned to making daily tortillas.

Bread dough in the bowl, cheddar cheese in the stock pots

Some of the seedlings are now in the garden. If we get a frost, we'll need to cover the tomatoes and squash. 

Seedlings hardening off from the greenhouse

Tomato seedlings

The large tomato that grew in the greenhouse over the winter.

Whey from cheese making to water in the tomato seedlings.

Tomato seedlings

Carrots

Yellow squash

It's been very wet and muddy for about a month now.

This week we had record high temperatures in the 90's. This weekend we will probably have a frost. It reminds me of the challenges farmers are having with the food supply and the issues with the solar minimum and how it affects weather extremes. The Ice Age Farmer is listed on our blog roll. He has some interesting things about the solar cycle and food supply. The pepper and beet seedlings will have to wait for the frost to pass to be planted.
 

Peppers

Beets on my planting wagon.

We thought a few more hoses were in order.

Frank used a garden hose to fill our storage tank from the water well by the greenhouse. We can use it for the garden or drinking water if necessary.

The world? Our country? Outside of the virus, the economy is on the verge of imploding. The effects of the virus don't appear to be near as devastating as the hysteria and overreach of the government indicates it was 'supposed' to be. There is some underlying sinister plot in play that hasn't raised it's ugly head into the light of day yet. When it does, I don't know if it will have the ugly head of a fire breathing dragon or the boot of the man upon our throats. It is difficult to find any clues or facts (how to know what is true or not is impossible anymore) that lead to any logical conclusions at all.

And then there are the 'essential workers' that have received their "papers" for safe travel to and from work. When I hear the term "Papers, please." it makes me think of a World War with major restrictions and controls upon the activities of societies across the globe. We know a man that received his "papers" a few weeks ago indicating he works in an essential industry, then received a comment recently with the same scenario. Is there a time coming when all travel will be restricted without official "papers"?

Phone apps are being developed to track people that have been infected, are suspected of being infected, have been vaccinated (once it becomes available) or haven't, and probably who is using all of that 'dirty' germ laden money. With many, many people staying home or drastically restricting their travel voluntarily due to fear, those that are out and about will be easier to track. Why is this really desirable? I don't really think it has anything to do with a disease.

So, we will continue to stay home, order a few things online to be delivered and continue our normal/abnormal life. There are times when the vision of what we see coming down the road is almost paralyzing. Other times, we continue our daily routine, just like any other spring, only with the feeling we need to keep an eye out over our shoulder for that sinister overshadowing that creeps ever closer. We used to say the storm is coming, get prepared. Now? The storm is here and it's too late.

We would really like to hear what you think and what is happening in your area. When it rains, it rains on all of us. We are all in this together. Speak up now while you still can. You never know when something you say may help another.

Until next time - Fern
 

Taco Salad

I was trying to dream up something good for supper the other day. You know what that is like, right? I had a few ingredients on hand, so I set about thinking, "Hmmm....what would be good and healthy? Or even just good!"

Many years ago they came out with a taco salad shell that you could bake and fill. It was a very light, crusty shell that tasted very good. I haven't bought them in many years. While we were in Alaska I tried making taco salad shells from store bought flour tortillas. It was okay, but not that great. Well, I decided to try making my own flour tortillas, then baking them into the salad shell. And, you know what? They were really good. Frank really liked them which gives them a place in the, "Let's remember that and make them again." category.

First I made up a regular batch of flour tortillas using one cup of flour. If I were going to make tortillas to fill and roll up, I would split this recipe into four pieces of dough. But since I wanted to make taco salad shells big enough to hold a decent amount of ingredients, I only split it into two pieces.

I got out a cookie sheet and two regular cereal bowls, coated the outside of the bowls with shortening and rolled out the first shell. I put it directly on the bowl, then realized that just wouldn't work. So I took it off of the bowl and cooked it in the skillet just long enough to give it some shape, but not as long as if we were going to eat it.

Then I put it back on the bowl and gave it a little shape. After doing the same thing for the second bowl, I baked them at 400 degrees for 10 minutes.




In the meantime, I browned up a bit of sausage, and cut up some lettuce and onions. To the table I added some of our jalapeno peppers, salsa and a bottle of ranch dressing. Frank and I tend to build our salads in different orders, but they both taste great.

Good to the last bite.










Until next time - Fern

Flour Tortillas

One of the simple, basic things I learned to fix when we lived in bush Alaska was flour tortillas. It took me a while before they were edible, but now I am pretty consistent. We have tried them with whole wheat flour and a mixture of white and wheat flour. When the time comes that we are dependent upon whole wheat flour, that is what I will use. But for now, we prefer them made from white flour. So here they are.

I make them fresh for a meal without making any extras. I have tried making extras and keeping them in the frig, which is okay. But, we prefer them fresh and they are quick to make. I only make four at a time and they aren't very big, so if your family requires more, you will have to increase the recipe accordingly.

Start off with 1 cup of flour.

Add 1/2 tsp. salt and 1/4 tsp. baking powder.

For the liquid add 2 tbsp. 
olive oil and 1/3 c. water.

Mix well. The dough will be rather moist.

Turn it out onto a floured surface, knead and add flour as needed until it is just barely not sticky. That sounds odd, but I have added too much flour before and the tortillas turn out rather stiff. 

So just get the dough to where it won't stick to the counter or rolling pin. Still put a little flour on the counter when you roll them out to help prevent sticking.

Now to cook them. The problem I initially had was not keeping the skillet hot enough and cooking them too long. So, put a little oil in the skillet, get it good and hot, then put in a tortilla. They don't need long to cook on each side, maybe 45 seconds to a minute. Flip them over, cook the other side, then place them in a towel or tortilla bowl to retain the remaining moisture and keep them warm while you cook the rest.

We like to have one with only butter and salt. They are great. This is one of the ways Frank ate them as a child.

Then I put together a variety of things to eat with them. It just depends on what we have on hand. Sometimes I just scramble up a few eggs. The possibilities are endless. This time I browned up some sausage, used some of the lettuce and green onions left from the layered salad, then got out some salsa. It was great!

This is one of those simple things that I definitely didn't succeed at when I first (and second and third and fourth) tried it. What's the old saying, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again."? Well, I finally got it right and can have everything ready at once, most of the time. Try something new for your family. Make something from scratch instead of buying it ready made. The more you teach yourself, the better off you will be, the more confident you will be, when all you can depend upon is yourself. It's coming. Practice everyday, either mentally or physically, or both. You're in my prayers.


Until next time - Fern