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Taco Salad

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Maybe being pregnant makes you remember food from childhood. I don’t know for  sure, but I do know that when I bought some Chinese cabbage today at the supermarket I remembered a favorite meal very vividly! Back when I was in my early teens, I would say, we would occasionally have taco salad for lunch. I will guarantee, however, that it was not the same as most people’s taco salad! To start with, we did not mix it ahead of time, but rather each person built their own on their plate—a lot like the “straw hats” or “hay stack” that are popular in some circles. Then, instead of buying corn chips, my frugal mother made corn bread. And by the way, I’m very thankful to my mom for instilling frugal values in me, although I’ve never pinched pennies quite the way she did. We would crumble corn bread onto our plate, then add a layer of pinto or kidney beans (we cooked enough to make about two quarts of beans, then added a pound of fried hamburger and seasoned it with salt and pepper). Next would be a thin layer of grated cheese, and then chopped dill pickles and onions. In season, we would use chopped tomatoes; the rest of the year we opened a couple of jars of canned tomatoes. I always liked to add some extra tomato juice to soak up the cornbread! The top layer was either lettuce or Chinese cabbage, depending on season; Mom always grew Chinese cabbage in the fall and stored it till about December. From then till summer, we had no salads except the occasional coleslaw and Iceberg lettuce once or twice when it went on sale. We got so hungry for salad by spring! But I digress. On top of the stack, we poured Basic French Dressing, a recipe from the old Oster blender cookbook, or Hidden Valley Dressing. Yum! That was before we started making salsa; when I was in my late teens we started making taco sauce and then salsa.

All the ingredients, ready to assemble!

My plateful, ready to eat. It was as good as I remembered! Everyone else liked this, too, and there were hardly any leftovers—a spoonful of beans, a few chopped pickles, and some tomatoes.

The recipes we used:

Cornbread (from Joy of Cooking)
Mix: 1 1/2 cups yellow cornmeal
1/2 cup flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1-2 Tablespoons sugar
3/4 teaspoons salt
Add: 1 egg
2-3 Tablespoons melted butter or bacon fat
3/4 cup milk
Mix lightly, bake in two loaf pans or a 9”x9” pan 20 minutes at 350­°F

Basic French Dressing (from old Oster Blender cookbook)
1 1/2 c salad oil
3/4 c vinegar
1/2 t sugar
1 1/2 t salt
1/4 t pepper
1 t paprika
2 t dry mustard
Put all ingredients into blender. Cover. Process until well blended. Shake before using.

Hidden Valley Dressing (my mom’s creation)
Put in blender:
1 egg
1 3/4 t salt
1/2 t dry mustard
1/4 t paprika
1/4 t garlic powder
2 t dry parsley
good shake black pepper
1 T vinegar
1 T lemon juice (or another Tablespoon vinegar)
1/4 c oil
Start blending. Immediately remove feeder cap and slowly pour in another 3/4 c oil. Then blend in 1 1/4-1 1/2 c buttermilk.

Cutting Wood

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Gayle and the boys have spent quite a few Saturdays and a holiday, now, cutting up trees that were pulled out from around this house before we moved in. They cut the tops and roots off, and then pulled the trees out of the paddock with the van. They only got stuck once! A neighbor came to the rescue with his tractor. These pictures are from the first day they worked on it—a beautiful, sunny day!

Little overseer. He hates getting muddy, and he is scared of the sheep, so he stayed up out of harm’s way!

It had been a very cold night—see that sheet of ice!

Esther was cleaning out a shed, in preparation for getting goats, which, after all, is not going to happen.

Opening up an old gate to pull the trees in close to the woolshed, where the wood was to be stacked.

And this is what happens when boys are trying to do a job too big for them! I superglued it together, and it has healed very nicely. To get it stitched, we would have had to drive an hour and a half, since it was a holiday, so I tried something I had heard of, figuring if it didn’t work, I could take him in to the local medical center the next day. Praise God, it healed without infection! I gave him massive doses of vitamin C for several days.

I took the picture because James wanted to know, while he was laying there, what it looked like!

Things We’ll Miss When We Move

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I finally got around to taking pictures here to show you this house and the features we especially love. Before I got them posted, we were told, this past week, that we have three months to move out. The landlord decided he wants to sell the house and thinks it will sell better empty. Now, we have the challenge of finding a house again—no easy proposition for our size family. It will be interesting to see what God does this time—but it’s sure not fun to be in this position! We love living here, all except the flooding, and there are certainly things we’ll miss.

The kitchen, with its wonderful coal range (wood cook stove):

The living room/our bedroom:

The boys’ bedroom:

Esther’s bedroom:

And outside, I love the freezer room (old woodshed several steps from the back door):

the jar room:

the big clothesline:

and the dry, convenient place to  milk my cow.

I sure don’t know what God has in this, but I’m trying to hang on to the fact that He does have a plan for us. Your prayers would be appreciated! We thought we had located a place already, but then they changed their minds.

Late May Pictures

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One evening, Mr. Sweetie was trying to make himself a costume with a blanket and clothespins. His little brother tried to help!

We had another heavy rain, and were afraid that we would have another flood, but thankfully the rain slackened just before the creek overflowed. We did have water running along the footpaths in front of the house again, though.

A mob of a couple hundred—maybe several hundred—sheep went past several days ago. The leaders were approaching our place, and the tail end of the flock had still not turned onto our road! Those vehicles in the distance are on the other road, behind the mob. The sheep were spread out over about half a kilometer (over a quarter mile).

This is probably the winner of the giant pumpkin contest for this year, although there is still one more to be weighed. This one weighed 30 kg (66 pounds). Unfortunately, we proved to ourselves that Atlantic Giant pumpkins don’t taste good. Actually, that is a mis-statement. They have no flavor at all! The cow got it, but didn’t get through the whole thing before it rotted.

I came in from milking one evening and found the little boys washing the window! They had great fun.

One Saturday, Gayle took all the older children to clean a house that his co-worker is moving into. I stayed home with the little boys. They get along so well together—it is great fun to watch them play! They got this barrel and set it up under the tree, then climbed the tree to get on top of the barrel. Big brother helped little brother get settled, and they pretended there was a flood. The barrel rocked back and forth rather violently, then toppled over!

Little fellow got hold of a small ball of yarn, and “tied” it onto various things, stringing it from the hallway into the kitchen. Then, someone helped him make it into a “hut”, which he is standing in in this photo.

This is Elijah doing his math—his favorite place is on top the piano!

One very frosty morning, the “lake” in front of the house was frozen over, except for this open spot in the middle where the ducks were.

Another morning, we were eating breakfast when we looked out the window and saw these two herons in the trees across the road.

I was out with the camera one afternoon and enjoyed seeing the ducks relaxing.

On my way back to the house, I opened the door so the chickens could free-range for awhile.

Our landlord worked for awhile on repainting the house and got this side done!

How to Make Egg Cake

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Our ducks have been laying their eggs in puddles–especially in the large “lake” in the paddock in front of the house. The boys ate some of the first ones they found, but decided they tasted like swamp muck. We cooked the rest of that batch to feed to the chicks. The next time some came in, I told the boy responsible that either he would cook them, or we would throw them away. My 9-weeks-pregnant tummy couldn’t handle the thought of possibly cracking open a rotten egg! Of course, he opted to throw them away. Boy #4, however, had a brilliant idea: cook with them! Here is the video he and a brother made of his creation. And yes, he is up high in a tree. What can I say–we have real boys!

Nelson Trip, Part Four: On the Way Home

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The trip home seemed to take a long time—much longer than going! Is that because everyone was tired? Especially the littlest was sick and tired of sitting in his carseat. We did stop a couple of times to enjoy the scenery. The first stop was at an overlook at the Hope Saddle, which everyone agreed wasn’t really worth stopping at. There were some beautiful views, but it was mostly trees in every direction.

We did have a surprise there, though: two guinea pigs in the bush! The boys tried to catch them (of course) but I was not sad when they did not succeed!

A couple of bored boys took pictures as we drove on from there through the mountains.

The highlight of the day was Maruia Falls, where we ate our picnic lunch. Notice the bark/wood floating in the water? It was slowly swirling in a circle.

Nelson Trip, Part Three and Split Apple Rock

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After eating lunch and letting the children play for awhile at Kaiteriteri, we drove a little farther on, to Split Apple Rock. We hiked down a steep trail from the car park to the beach, and suddenly saw this amazing rock!

There was amazing black sand on this beach, which kept itself separate from the golden sand. It was also much heavier. Must be a lot of minerals in it!

We also got to see and hear a tui! That was a new experience. The song is beautiful, but the video I took to try to record the sound only picked up the sound of the waves.

This was another beautiful beach!

The children explored some caves they found at one end of the beach, using headlamps they ran back up to the van to get, and found some Little Blue Penguins back in a crack! That was a special experience.

And then, a tour boat came along and anchored just offshore so the passengers could enjoy a cup of tea in these beautiful surroundings—and the man taking the tour recognized us and shouted hello across the water! That was special.

After leaving Split Apple Rock, we drove around to Marehau, at the beginning of Abel Tasman Park, just to see the area, then, without stopping, went back to our friend’s house with a very tired family. Despite being tired, however, the boys (and some of their girls) went down to play in the mud flats, since it was high tide. They came in at dark, covered with mud and cold!

I was intrigued by these boats, left high and dry on mud flats when the tide went out.

The view from our friend’s deck:

Nelson Trip, Part One

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We had planned to go to Nelson to visit friends over Easter weekend, but because of the storm had to change our plans. Three weeks later, we were able to go there. As we drove north, we were very thankful we hadn’t tried to go! The scars from the storm were still very visible, and it was obvious that we would not have made it through with our van.

It was hard to capture the destruction with the camera as we drove; these pictures just show a fraction of what we saw.

Vineyards in a valley just south of Blenheim.

Rugged hills and valleys south of Blenheim.

Somewhere between Blenheim and Nelson.

We had the most beautiful day for our trip up there! The sun shone all day, and everyone was happy. No grumping all day—what a blessing!

Lots of Water!

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We still have the aftermath of the big flood Easter weekend. Directly out our living room window, we can see this lake; in fact, I took these pictures out that window! Surprisingly, the boys have only played in it the one time. It’s about too cold most of the time this time of year to want to go swimming. The lake is larger now than when these pictures were taken, since we had another torrential rain a week or so ago. Thankfully, the creek didn’t flood around the buildings that time.Our landlord’s cows visiting with our steer.

And, a brief video clip I got of the boys splashing.