Upheaval on the Unfarm

Life on the Unfarm has been rather more chaotic than usual of late due to the fact that we had to refinish the wood floors last week. These would be the floors in the kitchen/dining room and on the landing, which also meant we would lose access to two of our three doors to the outside.

We were told that the crew would start sanding the floors on Tuesday so we spent Monday evening cramming all the dining room furniture into the living room. This annoyance for us proved to be a blast for Maximus: so many places to hide, so many new things to jump on. Tuesday we spent the day rearranging our schedules so that someone would always be at home when the crew arrived. They never did. Wednesday was more of the same: the crew said they would show up in the morning, then in the afternoon, and then in the evening. They didn't, they didn't, and they didn't. The less than reliable crew finally showed up on Thursday and then the real upheaval began. 

It's blurry, and this is after half the furniture is back in the dining room, but this gives an idea of the mess that was the living room/Max's playground.

The dogs and cats were moved downstairs where we had our only access in and out of the house, through the garage and out into the (unfenced) front yard. This meant that every time the dogs had to go out we had to round up the leashes and walk them out - which I realize is probably what people in apartments have to do every single day, but we are unaccustomed to this inconvenience and in addition we had to deal with Maximus who was determined to launch himself through the doorway the second it was opened. Our indoor only cat was then outdoors and we had to chase after him and fetch him back again from whatever bush or plant he had hidden himself under.

The other problem with the downstairs is that the whole thing is in laminate flooring which means that the trouble Maia already has with walking - or even remaining upright, at her advanced age of nearly 19 years - is made even more difficult by the slippery floors. In an effort to combat this problem we ended up laying out all of our rugs, blankets, yoga mats, and dog beds in a line from the main room, down the hallway, and up to the garage door. 

The finished dining room floors. Hallelujah! Bring on the pets! (Literally - the pets can finally walk on it.)

Needless to say, everyone was more than happy when we were finally able to walk on the floors again: the dogs returned to the (largely carpeted) upstairs and greatly appreciate the freedom to come and go as they please (unless Una is on the deck, in which case the dogs have to wait until she finishes her meal.) The humans on the Unfarm are enjoying the ability to once again access the kitchen and the backyard. Una also appreciates our ability to access the kitchen as that is where we keep her sunflower seeds and almonds, and the window she looks in to let me know she is hungry. Mynx is relieved to have the downstairs returned to her so that she can enjoy the relative solitude again. The only one who seems unaffected either way is Max, who enjoyed both the play land that was temporarily set up for him in the living room, as well as access to the kitchen where he can sit on the counter to watch Rat TV. As for his excursions in the out of doors, his view on the floors finally being finished appears to be that he once again has three potential places from which to escape the boredom of the house so we have to step up our game again to block the black streak that is Maximus on his way out. I am embarrassed to admit that Max wins more times than I would like. We are at times little match to his speed and flexibility.

The duck days of August

I finally managed to set up my pool today. Sadly, the Unfarm is not blessed with the in-ground infinity pool my mom and I have been drooling over, and as I would rather have a colonoscopy than wear a swimsuit in front of even one person at the public pools I must content myself with cooling off in our small inflatable pool. Swimming is pretty much out of the question for me. It is another story when it comes to the ducks. The pool that barely fits an adult fully stretched out is an aquatic wonderland for the ducks, and they are well aware of the potential of this giant oasis of wet. When fully filled, it is too high and there is no way for the ducks to get into the pool. Before that, however, for a good hour or so while the pool is filling up with water it is vulnerable to invasion by ducks and they know it. This then necessitates me to stand guard poolside during this time period. And even then, if I am not careful, the ducks will hop in at any opportunity. Despite the fact that the ducks have two year round pools of their own, they know a good deal when they see one.

Maggie peeks over the edge of the pool, checking to see if I'm looking.

"How long is Mom going to sit there?"

Maggie sits on the edge of the pool. This allows him to stay near the pool without actually breaking any rules, and thus avoiding a spray from the hose. Not that getting wet is that serious a punishment for a duck.

Maggie is pushing the limit a bit here, but still not technically in the pool. Ducks have a very good grasp of the rules.

I turned my back for a second and Maggie took advantage of the opportunity. He was in the pool before I could even turn around. Ducks: 1, Mom: 0.

Updated weather report

I am relieved (to say the least) that the weather seems to have taken a turn and sunnier skies appear to be in our future. The grouch storm is dissipating and the glasses are starting to look like they might be half full again. Hallelujah!

It's not all sunshine and roses

Life on the Unfarm lately is not all sunshine and roses, despite the fact that the sun is actually shining and the roses are actually blooming. No, the dark cloud over the Unfarm is coming from inside the house. Dad has been cranky of late. Cranky with a capital C. And R. And A, N, K, and... Y. This then makes life somewhat miserable for the rest of us. Any bit of happiness or enthusiasm on any subject is met with a gruff, if not downright surly, response on why we can't be enthusiastic, happy, optimistic, excited, etc about such and such or thus and such. It's not realistic; it will cost too much; I don't approve; no; I won't allow it; not gonna happen; because I said so and I am the king of everything; etc, etc. Nope, on the Unfarm the glasses are all half empty and there are no silver linings and nothing we can do will have any impact on the situation. Believe me, we've tried. All we can do now is try our best to weather this grouch storm and hope it somehow passes. Soon. Very soon.

Chocolate chip zucchini bread

It is summer and time for fresh vegetables, which means that we have an abundance of zucchini and we need to find something to do with it all. My mom likes to roast it and eat it seasoned with other vegetables but that doesn't work for me as I do not actually like zucchini unless I can't taste it. Enter zucchini bread. But even that is too healthy for me so I added chocolate chips to the recipe and it turned out pretty good - edible, even. In case you are also suffering from a glut of zucchini here is the recipe to try out.

2 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
3 teaspoons vanilla
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
2 cups of peeled, shredded zucchini
1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. In a large mixing bowl beat the sugar, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla together until well blended. In a separate bowl combine the flour, salt, cinnamon, baking soda, and baking powder and mix well. Slowly beat the dry mixture into the wet mixture until the dry mixture is well incorporated. Stir in the zucchini and the chocolate chips. Grease two 8x4 inch loaf pans and split the batter between the two loaf pans, filling them approximately half way. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the loaf comes out clean. Let the loaves cool for 10 minutes and then turn the loaves out onto racks to cool completely. If you want to bake mini loaves, try cutting the baking time down to about half an hour.

This produces a loaf in which you can't really taste the zucchini and you get little bits of sweetness from the chocolate chips throughout the loaf. Enjoy!

Projects on the Unfarm (an illustrated account)

In an effort to make this a productive summer, I have been working on knocking out a few of our bigger projects that have been sitting around on the to-do list for longer than I care to mention. With that goal in mind I tackled a patio and a barbeque restoration a few weeks ago. I didn't think to take a "before" picture of the area where I installed the patio but let me assure you that it was your standard weed-choked patch of dirt strewn with bits of old fencing from a defunct vegetable garden that never quite got enough sun to thrive. After several days of weeding, tilling, raking, smoothing, and hauling large loads of sand, cement, and bricks in very hot weather I managed to produce a fairly decent patio.

A view of the patio from above. It ended up being somewhat avocado shaped, which I didn't realize until it was finished.

The patio from ground level.

I should mention that my preferred method of patio building is rather informal: I level out an area, set out path liner to create the desired shape, put in sand as the base and smooth it out, then place bricks inside the border. After that I pour dry cement on top of the bricks and use a broom to sweep it into the cracks. Once the cement is in place I set the hose on mist or fine spray and wet the whole patio down until the water pools on top of the cement. Then wait for it to set and voila - (not so) instant patio. The amount of patience you have when it comes to doing the prep work (getting a perfectly level base) and how uniform in size your bricks are will determine how smooth your patio turns out. I am not generally blessed with an abundance of patience, but more than that I like to use recycled materials when possible so my patios tend to turn out less than perfectly smooth. (This is my third patio built in this style.) This doesn't bother me - they still function as intended and I like the rustic look and the fact that the bricks each have their story: some were extras from when the neighbors built their walkway; a few came from the construction of the new local library; and others are over a century old - rescued when a nearby cannery was closed down years ago.

Project number two: a barbeque restoration. This time I did get a "before" photo:

Our grill, before the restoration.

Our grill was in bad shape. We had gotten it years ago second hand from a garage sale. It was old at the time and it is even older now. And years of exposure to weather hadn't helped the situation. In truth, at this point the grill consisted more of rust and holes than it did of metal. This begs the obvious question: why bother? Why not just get a shiny new grill that has a functioning temperature gauge and doesn't have an ash tray so rusted out that an old license plate is the only thing keeping the deck from burning down? Why indeed.

The answer is simple: it is my mom's grill, and it is just like her father's grill, so it reminds her of him. He used to grill fish and corn on the cob out on the covered patio overlooking the lake in the summer at the Lakehouse. When all of us - our family, and my mom's sister and two brothers and their family and my grandparents - gathered at the Lakehouse we would sit down around the huge picnic table that grandpa had made and eat the dinner that grandpa had cooked. Grandpa is gone now and the family is fractured - fighting over money and control - I'm sure Grandpa approves. (That was sarcasm, by the way.) So that is why Mom loves the grill, and that is why the grill stays, no matter what the condition.

Thus began the monumental task of sanding and scrubbing and sanding again. For hours. And then taking apart as much of the grill as I could and finding new parts: screws, trays, planks, grill plates and thermometers. I bought special paint and repainted the grill, inside and out. I bought sheet metal and made a new ash tray, retiring the old license plate. The grill did not come out perfect - I was afraid that if I continued sanding until there was no more rust there would also be no more grill. So I did the best I could and had to settle for less than perfect - a difficult task in and of itself, to know that there was still rust under there and I could do nothing about it. At any rate, the finished product:

The "after" photo. It isn't perfect, but it's better than it was.

Life on the Unfarm: an illustrated account

The list of things we need to accomplish here on the Unfarm this summer is slightly massive, due in part to several large projects that have been put off for the last few years (or more): paint the exterior of the house, rebuild the back deck, and fix the retaining walls that were built with the wrong material to begin with despite my insistence that said materials were - in fact - wrong. My dad insisted on building them anyway, and now they are falling over. Do you sense an "I told you so" moment? My dad, conveniently, claims to have no memory of my previous advice. Ahh, the convenience of living with ADD.

At any rate, the huge list of summer chores has had me busy outside and neglecting my blogging duties. But today you're in luck, because I managed to find some time to get this photo uploaded. 

Sadly, we are not preparing to raise a new generation of chickens. We were under the assumption that the chickens were no longer laying, in fact. Sakari is ten now and has earned her retirement. Beauty has decided that she will never lay, despite the fact that she is supposed to be a good breed for egg laying. Penny, however, has historically been a fairly reliable layer but seemed to be on an extended strike, having apparently unionized. That was until we caught her hopping out of the little coop that sits empty since none of the girls seem to have taken to it. Checking the coop to see what Penny was up to, we discovered that she had been secretly laying an egg each day and had amassed a dozen eggs in her little nest. Chickens are wily creatures - it is embarrassing to admit that they have outwitted us more than once, and will likely do so again in the (near) future.

MORE ice cream sandwiches: lemon cookies with vanilla ice cream

I already posted a recipe for gingersnap ice cream sandwiches, but I have to admit that gingersnaps are not my favorite cookie and after making a batch of sandwiches for my dad, I felt the need to make a batch that my mom and I could enjoy. Enter: lemon cookies! The only problem was that I didn't have a good lemon cookie recipe so off to the internet I went and I managed to discover this treat on this blog: http://www.laurenslatest.com/. 

These lemon cookie sandwiches with vanilla ice cream are delicious!

Lemon crinkles

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
1 teaspoon fresh lemon zest
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cups flour
powdered sugar for rolling

Note: If you are planning on chilling the dough you won't need to preheat the oven yet.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla, egg, lemon zest and lemon juice. Scrape the sides if needed. Stir in all the dry ingredients until combined. If desired, chill the dough for easier handling. Roll into balls about 1 1/2 to 2 inches across and then roll in the powdered sugar. Place the balls onto greased, dark baking sheets about 3 inches apart. Bake for 9-11 minutes until the bottoms just start to turn golden and the cookies start to crack. Remove from oven and let cool on the sheets for 5 minutes or until well set, and then transfer them to a rack to cool completely. 

More notes: the original recipe says to mix the dry ingredients until just combined but I mixed them well and they seemed to turn out fine. The original recipe also says to use light baking sheets but I did my batch half and half, on both light and dark sheets and the batch on the dark sheets spread out less and kept a slightly thicker, rounder shape that worked better for me.

You can find the original recipe here: http://www.laurenslatest.com/lemon-crinkle-cookies/.

Time to make the sandwiches! Let some vanilla ice cream thaw out a bit until it is slightly softened.
Set out pieces of plastic wrap to be ready to wrap your sandwiches. Take one cookie and place it upside down. Use an ice cream scoop to scoop out a ball of the slightly softened vanilla ice cream and place it on top of the cookie. Take a second cookie and gently press down onto the ice cream, flattening out the ice cream and spreading it to the edges. If excess ice cream squeezes out of the sandwich just take a knife or your finger and smooth around the edges. Place the sandwich in the center of the plastic and tightly wrap the sandwich and then place into the freezer. Freeze for a couple hours and then enjoy. If you, like me, have trouble waiting for a couple hours for anything containing sugar, then you can also set aside one to have right away. These are delicious and well worth the little bit of work it takes to make them.

Ice cream sandwiches: gingerbread cookie with vanilla ice cream

In honor of father's day I decided to make these ice cream sandwiches because of the many things my father likes (cheese, broccoli, beets, chocolate, taffy, etc), gingersnaps and ice cream are also high on the list. So for a father's day treat I decided to combine these two loves into one delicious treat. I briefly contemplated making beet cookies with cheddar ice cream but decided I wasn't ready to be quite so adventurous. I don't think my dad was too crushed with my choice.

Yumm... It may not look perfect but I find that taste buds care about personality more than looks.

Gingersnap cookies

1 cup sugar
3/4 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 cup chopped crystallized ginger (totally optional)
Sugar for rolling dough in

Note: if you are chilling the dough, you don't need to preheat the oven yet. 

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in the egg and molasses. Stir in all the remaining ingredients until well mixed, scraping the sides if needed. At this point you may want to refrigerate the dough to make it easier to handle. Roll the dough into balls about 1 1/2 or 2 inches across. Try to keep them equal in size. Roll the balls in sugar to coat them, then place them 3 inches apart on greased dark baking sheets. Bake cookies for 9-12 minutes or until the edges are set and the tops have started cracking. Remove from the oven and let them cool on the sheets for at least 5 minutes. When they are well set, move them to racks to cool completely. 

When they are totally cool you are ready to make your sandwiches.

Set out pieces of plastic wrap to be ready to wrap your sandwiches. Take one cookie and place it upside down. Use an ice cream scoop to scoop out a ball of slightly softened vanilla ice cream and place it on top of the cookie. Take a second cookie and gently press down onto the ice cream, flattening out the ice cream and spreading it to the edges. If excess ice cream squeezes out of the sandwich just take a knife or your finger and smooth around the edges. Place the sandwich in the center of the plastic and tightly wrap the sandwich and then place into the freezer. Freeze for a couple hours and then enjoy.

Life on the Unfarm: an illustrated account

Max stalks his fat mouse/cherry

Cherries: they're not just for eating - they are also for playing with, according to Maximus. 

This morning found Maximus on one of his typical haunts: the kitchen counter. Despite being told (repeatedly) that he is not actually allowed on the counter he maintains that we must be mistaken. This is, after all, the best place from which to view Rat TV (which, despite our efforts to the contrary, is still airing occasionally), and how else is a small cat such as himself to get any milk, yogurt, ice cream, butter, etc if he is not where the food is: on the counter? 

Also on the counter this morning was a colander full of fresh cherries. Max sat in front of the colander and contemplated the cherries: they were small, and dark, and had tails (aka stems.) Just like his favorite wand toy, which he has currently chewed down to a disappointingly small nub. But fate has presented him with an opportunity - here sits a bowl full what can only be fat mice. He fished one out with his paw and dropped it onto the floor. From there he hopped down and batted it all over the kitchen. He then picked it up by the tail and carried it off into the living room to continue playing amongst his many other toys. He seemed quite proud of himself, and despite his multiple transgressions (on the counter, stealing food, throwing cherries around the living room carpet) our reprimands were half-hearted at best. Can you really be mad at someone so cute? So far the verdict is "no."