A Direct Skunk Hit

I don't know what it going on, but I have seen more skunks around this fall than I have seen in the previous seven years we've lived here combined.

A few weeks ago, the eldest child came to find me late at night to let me know that a skunk had sprayed directly under his window and that it was too awful in his room to sleep. He moved onto the couch for the night. Shortly after that, the dogs sounded the alarm in the shop, and A. went out to find a small skunk wedged against the shop's foundation wall, under a shelf. He managed to shoot it anyway and we disposed of it. The dogs were slightly stinky, but didn't sustain any damage from the encounter.

This morning at 5:30, I was sitting in my room with the window open when I smelled the unmistakable presence of a skunk. And then the dogs again started barking frantically, this time in the covered porch that is right out our front door.

I grabbed a flashlight and opened the front door to find Jasper on the front steps and a skunk right next to the steps with its tail raised.

I stood in our front door to take this photo. The skunk was right between that jug of vinegar and the red jacket.

I closed the door and alerted A. By the time he got his pistol loaded, the skunk was gone. The dogs had left their defensive positions. Partially they gave up because once I arrived, they considered their job done. But also, the skunk sprayed. Right there. On our front steps. And directly in Jasper's face, I think.

When A. went out to find the skunk gone, Jasper was hiding in the corner, making little gasping noises and with his eyes streaming tears. He had clearly gotten the spray in his eyes and also inhaled some. I looked online to see what we should do, but the suggestions of flushing his eyes out with saline solution or bathing his head with a mixture of hydrogen peroxide, etc. didn't seem too practical for one of our feral dogs. They are not accustomed to being handled, and he was obviously in distress. I think we would have gotten a pretty good bite for our troubles.

The internet also said we should take him to a vet. Given the nearest vet is 100 miles away, I decided to wait a bit on that one and see what happened.

In the meantime, our entire house absolutely reeked of skunk. I have never smelled anything like it. A strong skunk smell is a bit like really strong tire rubber. This was like that, but more chemically and a little like garlic. If garlic smelled like tires and chemicals. It was bad. SO bad. And everywhere in the house.

The smell actually woke all the children up. There wasn't much I could do. I don't buy scented candles, although we do have three religious candles with saints on them that A. bought at the grocery store many years ago for the children. These are lightly scented, so I lit them and gave two to the youngest children, who brought them into Poppy's room. This is a small room, with no outside windows or anything, so they could kind of seal it off. 

They also asked me for some of my perfume. I bought a set of sample fragrances awhile ago so I could try a bunch, and I still had some. I gave this to them.

A plethora of options.

They chose Versace White Diamond and sprayed it liberally in Poppy's room.

The eldest child barricaded himself in his bedroom and sprayed his cologne in there. Amusingly, this is Versace Eros. So now that entire side of the house smells like a Versace scent factory.

I, meanwhile, sat at the dining room table with the St. Martin candle directly under my nose.

Being careful not to burn my nose, of course.

As soon as it was light, I was out the door in search of fresh air. An excellent incentive to get out for my run this morning. 

Jasper was still in his corner, but when I came out, he got up and went on my run with me. His eyes seemed fine, although he did stop several times to rub his head in the tall grasses and I caught his unfortunate stench anytime I was downwind of him.

The face of a dog who will not be getting any petting in the near future.

The kitchen, which is pretty close to the front door, still smells bad, even with all the windows open. For this reason, I allowed the eldest child to eat his breakfast in his bedroom. The younger children ate theirs in the van.

Well-ventilated, and with handy cup holders for their chocolate milk.

I can only hope that skunk took off for a far-off destination, never to be seen again. And that we don't get any more skunky visitors this fall.

Addendum: How naive of me to think the skunk was gone! Just now, hours after the excitement, I was coming up the front steps and saw something black and furry wedged under the firewood rack right next to the steps. Like literally eight inches from where my feet were. For a second I thought it was one of the dogs. But they had gone on a walk with one of the kids. Could it be the skunk, which had hidden itself RIGHT NEXT TO MY FRONT STEPS?

Yup. Apparently the dogs were so traumatized by their run-in with it, they just decided it could live next to our steps forevermore.

This time A. had his pistol ready to go and dispatched it quickly. But it did not go gently into that good night, instead sending out more waves of putrid stench as it died. Next to my front door.

Thanks a lot, skunk. And good riddance.

Friday Food: Many Carrots

Friday

Short version: Cheeseburger patties, mashed potatoes, leftover baked beans, tomato/cucumber salad

Long version: I asked A. if he would rather have the hamburgers with gravy, or as cheeseburgers. He chose the cheeseburgers. I didn't have any buns, so it was just the patties.

I miraculously had one cucumber from the garden that was only partially bitter. Usually the whole thing is too bitter to eat. Occasionally I get lucky and there will be one or two that are only bitter on the stem end. I can only determine this if I taste them, though, so I taste a tiny bit of every cucumber starting from the stem end to see if it's edible. If that end is bitter, I'll cut a bit from the blossom end and try that. If that's okay, then I have to experiment with cutting bits off different spots to see where it gets inedible.

It's quite unpleasant, because I often just get a really bitter bite that has to be spit out. I persevere, however, because I hate to waste them.

Anyway. This one was about half edible, so I combined it with some tomatoes and just dressed that with leftover ranch dressing.

Saturday

Short version: Dad's omelets, leftover macaroni and cheese, carrot sticks

Long version: This was the day I took Poppy to the very remote birthday party. I didn't know what time I would be getting home, but I knew I wouldn't want to be making dinner, so I informed A. there were lots of eggs and he could make omelets.

Then when I walked in the door at 5 p.m. and the boys immediately wanted to know what was for dinner, I could refer them to their father, who started to make the omelets.

He put cheddar cheese, chopped tomato, and parsley in them. 

I added the leftover macaroni and cheese and the carrot sticks, because I can never let well enough alone.

Sunday

Short version: Pork chops, rice, green salad with vinaigrette, pots de creme

Long version: I battled my inner lazy demon about these pork chops. I was tempted to just stick them under the broiler with some barbecue sauce. I knew, however, they would be better if I made more effort.

My better self won, and I dredged them in an egg wash and seasoned flour before browning them and then putting them in the oven while I was baking bread. These turned out pork chops that were so good, the one child who is quite sparing with his compliments informed me that these were the best pork chops he's ever had. A. agreed. 

More work=more flavor.

And more happiness on the plate.

I hadn't made pots de creme in quite some time. It's always a very popular dessert. Incidentally, I decided that there was no point in encouraging too much greed with this rich dessert by making a double recipe. So now I only make the single recipe. I don't eat any, and it's enough for the five other members of my family.

They do not agree with this, but then, they're not the ones making the pots de creme.

Monday

Short version: Chicken tomato corn chowder, garlic bread, cheese, ice cream

Long version: This was a very delayed soup. I made the stock and picked off the meat the previous Thursday, when my dinner plan changed to accommodate two extra children. I made the chowder on Saturday morning, thinking maybe I would just heat it up if I got home early enough. But then A. made his omelets. So we had it this night, instead.

I had made the garlic bread the previous day when I was baking bread, which made this a meal that only required re-heating the day of.

I hadn't been planning on ice cream, but one child was sick and had a sore throat. Ice cream seemed appropriate in such a situation.  And of course, everyone else must have some, too. It was plain vanilla, with a choice of maple syrup or chocolate syrup.

Tuesday

Short version: Sausages, meatballs, leftovers, green grapes, later bread and butter

Long version: I thawed a package of jalepeno/cheddar sausages and another of the not very popular mozzarella and basil sausages. And then I had a small bag of prepared meatballs I froze a month or so ago that I also put in the oven with some ketchup, barbecue sauce, and water.

These various meat products were served with leftover rice, mashed potatoes, and chowder. Green grapes instead of a vegetable because I had been to the store this day. And I had also baked bread just before dinner, which of course meant that everyone must have a slice of the fresh bread as soon as it was cooled enough to slice without completely destroying the loaf.

Wednesday

Short version: Pork, baked beans, butter-swim biscuits, maple carrots, pickles, rice pudding

Long version: When I have a pork shoulder in the oven for a long time, I usually make baked rice pudding, too. This time I also squeezed in some carrots to cook at the same time. Those just had butter and maple syrup on them. I haven't yet found a better way to cook carrots.

A couple of my children refuse to eat cooked carrots of any kind, even with maple syrup, which is why I also put out some pickles. A vegetable of a sort.

These biscuits. I always make one and half times the recipe and bake it in a 9"x13" pan. We had a guest with us for dinner, so I prevailed upon my children to not call the biscuits by their own original and unappetizing appellation of "butter-bloat biscuits." I like alliteration, but not when it's gross.

When non-family-members join us for dinner, I usually set everything out as a buffet. That way our guests can get up for seconds without feeling as if they need to ask first.

Thursday

Short version: Pulled pork sandwiches, leftover baked beans, carrot sticks

Long version: I had a lot of containers of leftovers crowding the refrigerator, so a dinner of leftovers was in order. 

I had the last of the chowder.

Everyone else had pulled pork sandwiches made with leftover pork. Plus baked beans and carrot sticks.

Refrigerator check:

Okay, your turn! What'd you eat this week?

First Fire

Over the most recent two decades of my life, woodstoves have featured heavily in 17 of those years. We had a couple of years in our house on the Canadian border without a woodstove, and about six months in the rental house we first lived in in New Mexico didn't have one, either. But otherwise, I have built hundreds of fires to heat our homes both in New York and New Mexico.

Our woodstove in New York would hold a fire overnight, so it wasn't always necessary to build one every morning. But our woodstove here doesn't do that. I have to build a fire every morning. This is almost always my task, because I get up so much earlier than everyone else.

Looking at the weather forecast for today, I saw 48 degrees overnight and a high of only 59 degrees, with rain, for today. That, to me, spelled out "first fire" just as clearly as if it were in the forecast itself.

Accordingly, I spent some time yesterday cleaning up around the woodstove. I had to clear away all the things that had accumulated around the stove--the apple scrap vinegar that was fermenting, water jugs, empty ice cream buckets, etc.--and then vacuum off the woodstove itself and the area around it. It always gets very dusty over the summer.

The interior of the stove was cleaned out after the last fire, so that was ready. I had to shift the liquor cabinet from its summer position closer to the woodstove (and clean the cabinet and the area around it, because gross) to its winter position further over so there would be room for the wood rack.

Last, I gathered together everything I would need to start the fire: kindling that was still scattered in the area where the boys chop it for me in the winter, small pieces of wood, a box, and paper. I bring all of this in overnight so it won't be damp when I have to start the fire.

The younger children's old math workbooks are the best for starting fires, because the pages are so thin. And they like to see their math burn.

At 5:30 a.m., I layered the crumpled paper, ripped up cardboard, smaller pieces of kindling, bigger pieces of kindling, and small pieces of wood, and lit it.

The first flames of a very long woodburning season.

Barring difficulties like wet materials or zero draft, I can get a fire started in about ten minutes.

There it is.

When it's time to get the children up for school, I will get their clothing out of their rooms and lay it on top of the woodstove to warm up before they put it on. It makes it slightly easier to roust them out of their warm beds and into another cold school morning.

It's not yet time to burn the stove continuously, as the weather will fluctuate between pretty warm days and colder nights for some time yet, but the stove is now ready to go whenever its needed.

Are there any winter preparations happening at your house?

Snapshots: Sunrise, Pickles, Flowers, and a Remote Party

 I went for a sunrise walk. And I brought my phone.

Some very late sunflowers.

The schoolhouse and the sheep.

The rising sun behind our compound.

I was gifted some more cucumbers, so of course I made more pickles.

Commence pickling.

October is a mayordoma month for me, so I finally changed the (fake) flowers on the altar from the spring-y ones I put there after Easter to something a bit more seasonally appropriate.

I'm not really a fan of these colors, but at least St. Joseph's robe doesn't clash with them.

Neither does St. Therese's.

And then, of course, I had to make something complementary for the front of the altar.

Autumn arrangement featuring yellow apricot leaves, yellow clover, sunflowers, and orange calendula.

I didn't use the very pink cosmos for that, as they don't really match that color scheme, but I do have a lot of them for the table.

Candlelight and flowers before school for a gentle start to the day.

I found this thing curled up on the floor of the sacristy at church.

It was still barely alive, so I swept it up and put it outside. Even insects dying in a church are entitled to mercy.

Poppy was invited to a classmate's birthday party. This girl doesn't live in our district but chooses to come to our school. Her mother works there, too, and they have to drive over an hour to get to school. Which meant we had to drive an hour to get to her house. About 18 miles of that were on dirt roads.

I bet this is fun in the winter.

They live in a very beautiful spot, though, with a little spring that's been channeled and runs right behind their house.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: An Ambitious Week

Friday 

Short version: Re-fried Spanish tortilla, football food

Long version: I had quite a lot of Spanish tortilla left from the night before. A. ate a late lunch when he was in town, so he wasn't hungry for dinner, which meant there was enough for the children. To re-heat it, I chunked it up and fried it in butter. 

And then we went to the football game, where all three children with me went to the concession stand with their own money and bought either Frito pie, a cheeseburger, or nachos.

Saturday

Short version: A middle eastern feast, plus upside down pear gingerbread cake with whipped cream

Long version: It all started with the chickpeas. I had cooked a bag of dried chickpeas a few days previously on a day when it was chilly and the house needed the heat from simmering something for awhile. So I had these cooked chickpeas. I also had about a pound and a half of ground beef in the refrigerator.

My first thought was to make a sort of gyro filling with these two things, which would mean I needed pita bread. So I started the sourdough for that in the morning, using a recipe for naan bread. But didn't I say I needed pita bread? Yup, but I made naan bread instead. Such are the inconsistencies in my American kitchen.

The bubbles are fun.

I changed my mind about putting the the chickpeas in with the meat and instead made hummus with them. I had the children skin them for me, and I definitely did not regret making the hummus. I love hummus, and it was so good in the gyro (ish) with the meat.

To the meat I just added some pureed tomatoes I had in the refrigerator, along with any seasonings that seemed right--garlic and onion powder, thyme, oregano, cumin--and chicken stock.

Options for toppings included thinly sliced cucumber, tomato, pickled onions, and a yogurt sauce that was just yogurt, bottled lemon juice, garlic, and salt. Plus the hummus, of course.

Same idea as tacos, just different flavors.

Also similar to tacos, the more you put on it, the better it is.

This was so good. So, so good.

I took Cindi's advice to try this recipe for an upside down pear gingerbread cake. This is a slightly involved cake, what with the pears to prepare, then the caramel for the pears, and then the cake itself, but it was much better than the previous pear upside down cake I tried. Much less sweet and more spicy. It also came out of the pan better.

I notice none of the photos of these sorts of cakes on actual recipe sites show the whole cake, just small pieces. I suspect everyone's upside down cakes are a mess in reality.

I should have baked it about five minutes longer to fully cook the center, but A. loved this, as did the two boys who were home. Poppy wasn't such a fan. I liked it more than that first overly sweet one, but I have concluded I'm just not into cooked fruit on my cakes.

Sunday

Short version: Pizzas, green salad with ranch dressing, leftover cake

Long version: The weather has cooled and we're not running any heat yet, which means that my kitchen is usually somewhere around 65 degrees. This makes for some very slow bread dough rising. So much so that I have to periodically turn my oven on for a few minutes to heat a bit and then put the rising dough in the turned off oven so it will actually rise fast enough to be used for pizza. Which is what I did this day.

One pizza had pepperoni. The other was just cheese.

I stuck the leftover upside down cake in the oven with the pizza, covered with foil, to bake the raw center more. Those who didn't care for the cake had the chocolate peanut butter cookies I had made for this week's school snack.

Monday

Short version: Chicken parmesan, pasta with pesto, green salad with vinaigrette, stabby cake with ice cream

Long version: I had one last package of chicken breasts in the freezer. Last time I thawed chicken breast, I had meant to make chicken parmesan, but then I found I was out of Parmesan cheese. I figured I'd better make it with this last package of chicken breasts, so that is what I did. I did cut the breasts horizontally, though I didn't pound them.

The whole dipping and frying process is quite enough bother without pounding the raw chicken.

The end result was awfully good, though.

This was the Feast of the Archangels, among whom St. Michael is our household favorite. For several years now, I have made a devil's food cake and the children have stabbed it after reciting the St. Michael prayer. 

It's fun. And delicious.

Tuesday

Short version: Re-combined pasta, leftover pizza, cucumbers with salt and vinegar, pear sauce

Long version: After a few days in a row of intensive cooking, I was ready for break. So I pretty much just used leftovers for this meal. I chopped up the few pieces of chicken that were left over and added them to the leftover pasta with pesto, plus some plain pasta I had cooked the day before and not mixed with the pesto. To make it saucier, I added a small can of tomato sauce, a bunch of butter, and some garlic powder.

The pear sauce was some I made last week and that needed to be eaten or frozen. Thus ends 2025 pears. It was a good year for them.

Wednesday

Short version: Scrambled eggs, baked beans, cornbread, apple crisp with vanilla ice cream

Long version: If you've been noticing a lot less meat in my menus, that's because we're waiting on getting a whole cow for our freezer when our neighbor ships her cattle, probably this month. I can't bring myself to buy a lot of store meat, so that's why there have been a lot more meals with beans, cheese, or eggs replacing some or all of the meat.

Luckily, an acquaintance got a bunch of new hens this year and is currently drowning in eggs. She was very happy when I asked if I could buy five dozen a week from her. I am also happy, because her house is on my way to the village, so it's easy for me to stop by and get them. She only asked me for $4/dozen, so now we have a lot of eggs on hand. Some of which I scrambled for dinner this night.

I had cooked pinto beans the day before, just because it was chilly in the house and simmering anything on the stove for a few hours warms the kitchen up a bit. I had just cooked them plain with a ham bone. I used them this day to make baked beans that were not actually baked at all since I cooked them entirely on the stove.

The apple crisp used the last of the fresh apples, thus ending the 2025 apples, too. I did can and freeze a lot for them, though, so it's really just the end of the fresh apples.

Just enough apples for the crisp, and just enough peelings and cores to make another batch of apple vinegar. 

This is the second batch of vinegar I've made, so that's about a gallon of vinegar total this fall. It's not acidic enough for canning or whatever, but it's good for cooking with. I put some in the apple crisp, as a matter of fact.

Thursday

Short version: Macaroni and cheese for a crowd, leftover baked beans, carrot sticks with ranch dip, cookies

Long version: I had some bags of chicken bones/carcasses in the freezer I wanted to get rid of, so I simmered those in the morning and pulled all the meat off in preparation for making chicken tomato corn chowder. My plan was to serve this with biscuits.

Plans changed in the afternoon when I learned I would be feeding two extra children. Also, A. and eldest were going hunting immediately upon getting home. All of these people needed to eat immediately upon entering our house so that I could get all children to flag football practice at 5:30 p.m. and the hunters could eat and bolt.

I did not have enough soup for this. I also did not feel soup was the best plan when feeding a bunch of young kids. Especially young kids who would be hyped up and rushing.

That's why I made a quadruple recipe of this macaroni and cheese, instead. I also heated up the baked beans from the night before and set out carrot sticks and ranch dip. I let everyone serve themselves so they would only take what they might eat.

I made a quick batch of chocolate chip cookies, too. And then in the end, A. had to drive a longer bus route than he had anticipated, so there was no hunting. And one of the anticipated guest children wasn't feeling well and didn't come, so I ended up with only one extra child. 

Anyway. There was lots of food.

Refrigerator check: 

Yes, my deli drawer slider is broken AGAIN. This will be the fifth time I have replaced it in seven years. That flimsy piece of plastic is just no match for the heavy use it endures in our house.

Okay, your turn! What'd you eat this week?

Again with the Painting

 Almost exactly two years ago, I painted the children's bathroom. I was very proud of myself for getting it done, and also happy that I could cross one more room off my list of rooms that need painting.

Except then I had to do it again.

After A.'s spectacular bathroom renovation in there that included entirely replacing the sub-floor and then putting Moroccan-style blue and white stick-on tiles over that, the walls looked . . . wrong. The white on the tiles was so bright that it made the yellow-y white of the walls look dingy. There were also a few spots around the bathtub especially that had gotten roughed up from the tub installation with deep scratches and peeling paint.

And then there was the bright yellow on the cabinets, which was a little much with the floor color and pattern.

Much as I hated to do it, the whole bathroom really needed to be painted again. 

When I investigated our cans of paint in the shop, I found that I really didn't have any usable paint left. Accordingly, the next time I was at Walmart, I bought some paint. This being a New Mexico Walmart, I did not have it in me to try to pick out a paint color to be mixed and then hunt down an employee to mix it for me. Instead, I took a look at the limited pre-mixed color options and went with the lightest blue available.

This was still not as light as I wanted it to be, even after I mixed in a whole quart of white paint I had. I forged ahead anyway. The end result is very blue. 

There are no windows in this bathroom, so the color is kind of hard to see. It's definitely blue, though.

I had wanted to paint the middle of the cabinets white for contrast, but I used my white paint to tone down the blue. So blue on blue it is.

I am not a huge fan of blue in general, and I am far from a professional painter, but this certainly does look much better than it did.

My next challenge is going to be painting the awful faux marble sink and countertop with white tub finishing paint, due to be delivered on Friday.

Yuck.

And then I will do the same thing--sink and all--in our bathroom, which A. just finished working on. At least that one I procrastinated so much on painting that I haven't done it recently.

In a couple of weeks*, we'll have two freshly-painted fancy bathrooms. And then I won't paint anything for a long time. I hope.

* I have to go get more paint for our bathroom. This time I'm going to get a gallon of white and just tint it a little with the blue paint I have left. I really don't want our bathroom to be quite so blue.

Snapshots: Time Marches On

Almost exactly 12 years ago, I posted a photo of t-shirts on my laundry line. The t-shirts belonged to A. and the older two boys. I only had the two boys then--they were three and one-and I said that it was hard to believe those little boys would grow to need a shirt as big as their dad's.

Well . . .

From the left: A.'s shirt, then eldest's, and then middle and youngest boys'.

Friday was the homecoming football game and dance.

Nice night for football.

The game was over around 9 p.m. I had promised Poppy we would stay for at least some of the dance, so we ended up not getting home until 10 p.m. Way past our bedtimes, but it was fun.

I scrounged up some flowers for the altar, but it's definitely getting harder.

The remaining sunflowers are mostly quite small.

The flowers for the table are easier to find because they don't have to be so large and tall.

Dainty.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.