So Much For Spring...Pajama Day At Our House

The weather has been just plain STORMY today! It was about 30 F mid afternoon, but with wind so strong that we had horizontal and swirling snow. It's still snowing now. I took these pics about a half hour ago.

Every window of the house is blasted with snow, no matter which direction it faces. Crazy stuff!

It has been one of those Sundays where everyone puts on their lounge wear and slippers after church. We just hang out together, baking in the kitchen or snuggling on the couch with a blanket. Matt decided to make some wheat bread (Of all the cooking and baking he has done in his life, this was the very first time he has made homemade bread!). He and Talmage are sitting on the floor watching the goods bake in the oven! Yummy!

Lone Survivor and Gardening in The Land of The Frozen

The Meyer Lemon tree has come back to life after it's traumatic shipment to MT in February! The top stems died off, but there are many new branches and leaves starting to bud out on the surviving branches. I gave it a haircut this morning to get rid of the deadwood.


The Key Lime tree is not happy. I saw no evidence of recovery as I cut the dead branches off of it as well (most of them). I will not give up on the poor tree yet, but will admit that the dreams off little key limes are beginning to fade...


The boys have had some success with their lemon seed plantings. Two have sprouted and grown to about 3 inches tall. They are really excited about their little trees!


It has been snowing, windy and bitter cold off and on this week. It seems a bit odd to be planning on planting tomato seeds and others in the next few weeks (albeit in the cozy mechanical room under some grow lights) so that they will be big and strong enough for our summer garden. Hard to imagine that the garden will be defrosted by then. I haven't been daring enough to go out and check the asparagus bed yet. It's snow blanket just melted a couple of days ago.

A Bunch of Sickos

At least some of us, anyways. This past week, our little family was hit by the latest bugs flying around these parts. Mom was the first to keel over with a lovely sinus infection. I tried beating it by following the nice little list of do's and do not's my Dr gave me, but had to go with plan B (antibiotics) after all. I started them on Saturday. I really hate going on them. I still feel lousy.
Xander followed suit with a nasty cough and a low grade fever on Wednesday. Thank goodness for Tylenol. He's still having trouble with this cold, but doesn't really fit the criteria for antibiotics, so we're just keeping watch on him.
Dad has had a few nasty headaches too, so we're hoping he isn't in for it as well.
Kalvin, the kid with a steel immune system, is ever healthy.
And Talmage just had a runny nose. For a day. Go figure.

I'll add more later. Going to bed. I'm pooped.

Food Finds

My new favorite

Lime juice, sugar, mint, and some water or a hint of club soda or ginger ale, and behold, the humble virgin mojito is born. I can't believe I haven't had one of these before.

Front Street Market

My catering friend, M, called the other day and asked if I wanted to go to this food store in a nearby town (90 mi is close in these parts). It's been around for some time, but she just found out about it. Can I just say CANDY STORE!!! for a food fanatic? Pure bliss when I walked into the place. I don't think the whole store is more than 1400 sf, if even that, but we were there an hour and a half. Seriously. The shelves were placed so close together that we couldn't pass each other. And they were loaded with every kind of sauce, spice, imported pasta, chocolate, drink...You name it, it was there. I picked up some pasta, rose water (found a few recipes lately that call for it), pomegranate "molasses", and other fun things. I know that for those living in larger cities, these items may not seem so exotic, but they are really hard to find around here. It took some major self restraint to not pick up more than I did!

Can The Weather Please Make Up It's Mind?

I really shouldn't complain. We had a staff dinner party at our house Monday night. The weather was amazingly cooperative. Sunny. No wind. And sixty. SIXTY! It was definitely a T-shirt day. But by Thursday, we were back to snowstorms coming in and cold, cold, cold single digits weather. We had some drizzly rain thrown in the middle of the week as well. Guess I should watch the forecast more. I left the house on Thursday wearing jeans and a 3/4 sleeve shirt. Without a jacket or other coat. I froze!

The dinner party was spectacular. It is the first time we have ever held one and not done all the cooking. Our friend, M, catered the meal. It's what she does, and for good reason. We had an antipasti platter, hot artichoke dip, chutney and brie phyllo bites, blue cheese crusted filet mignon with a reduction sauce, sauteed green beans with toasted pine nuts, cream scalloped potatoes, creme brulee and a dense chocolate mousse cake with ganache. I could hardly roll into bed that night, but it was worth every bite!

Monday marked the official beginning of the Strawhouse remodel! We'd like to say that the ground was broken, but it would be more appropriate to say that the concrete is officially cut. And lots of it. The crew has had fans running during the day to try and help with all the dust being generated. There are many "lines" of broken concrete piles all over now. Truly a mess, but it's our mess and we're happy to see it! We'll show a few pics now, but will hold off posting anymore here until the project is finished. We want to keep it under wraps until then. No peeking!

Dusty Mess

What Hasn't Been Happening Around Here?

We kind of lost track of time these past few weeks. We've been really busy, but not with one thing in particular. Just many odds and ends!

We signed the construction contract for the Strawhouse! We are really excited to see it transform from an empty grocery store into a dental office with LOTS more room than what we currently have. It is scheduled to be completed by June 26th! Hopefully, it won't be miserably hot outside the days we are moving everything over there...

Matt finished his scuba certification course, all except his open water dive. We are planning on a quick trip down to Utah sometime in the next month so that he can get that dive done. It is too cold to do it here. Matt is looking forward to our trip to Hawaii in May so that he can dive there. I would love to dive with him, but am not able to after having major ear surgery a year ago. At least I can still snorkel!

Our weather has been rather unpredictable. It is now cold and there is snow, but just a few days ago, it was almost sixty, and the boys were able to go out and enjoy their playground in our backyard.





I have found myself laughing quite frequently this week at some of the things Xander has been saying. It's just little things, really, but so cute in how he says them:

teeter totter--"tater totter"
grow up--"throw up" (okay, so that one is not so cute)
ravioli--"grabby-oli"

Update on the citrus growing:

Why is it that the one kid that really enjoyed planting the seeds, but had no clue what he was really doing it for ended up with the only two little sprouts that are trying to become lemon trees? Yep. That would be Talmage. He has a couple lemon trees in his green pot. Nothing in Kalvin's or Xander's. Zip. Zero. Zilch. I haven't had the courage to tell the boys yet. They still think the seeds need longer to sprout. Maybe I'll wait a few more days to say something, in hopes that another seed or two may sprout in the older boy's pots.
My Meyer lemon and key lime trees? They are a bit sad these days. They did lose all their leaves due to the shock of transport. I've been lovingly misting them every day with a spray bottle and providing them as many rays of the sunshine as can be mustered through the windows. Hopefully they know how hard I've tried to keep them happy! I await the day they tell me I've done a good job by sending out new lead buds.

And the citrus canning?

I went overboard. I admit it. There are jars and jars of lemon marmalade, lime marmalade and a little orange marmalade in our pantry. One of the batches of lemon didn't thicken as well as I would have liked, but it sure made for some good syrup over yummy French toast on a Saturday morning! Matt has sure been a good sport about all of it. I think every time he walked into the kitchen, he saw me standing at the stove, stirring yet another batch of a sweet, syrupy citrus concoction...

I'M ADDICTED...

To Meyer lemon vanilla bean marmalade.



It is SO good. I found a recipe and tweaked it a bit. The original called for a plain vanilla bean and seeds. We have always made our own vanilla extract with vanilla beans and Jim Bean brand bourbon, so I used our bourbon soaked v-beans instead in the recipe. What a nice undertone of flavor without screaming "bourbon!"
With living in Montana, I never thought I'd have the opportunity to try out Meyer lemons. But guess what? Our favorite store (Costco) came through once again-Those beautiful light orange lemons were just begging me to buy them as I passed through the produce area this past week. Since they were fresh, and Matt and I are fresh lemonade-ophiles, I first tried making some lemonade.

Okay, can I just say something here? No one, I mean NO ONE, ever mentioned in anything I have ever read on these lemons, that they have a sort of herb like smell and taste to them. I can't say that I really liked that lemonade. Maybe it just needs to grow on me. But I'm not sure I want to waste those precious little babies trying to learn to like it. So I gave up on the idea of Meyer lemonade. It's just not my thing. Not Matt's either.
BUT...they are really good in baked and cooked things, like the marmalade, and a lemon pudding cake I also whipped up.

Now don't laugh too hard at this. I actually ordered a Meyer lemon (and a Key lime) tree about a month ago. Kind of ironic, isn't it? I've been waiting for the shipment, since the supplier would not send them until our weather warmed up a bit. Our daytime weather has been in the 40's the past couple of weeks, and my little trees finally arrived yesterday. I followed all the planting directions, and am crossing my fingers that they make it. They are looking kind of sad right now. Evidently, citrus trees really hate temperature fluctuations and like to lose their leaves initially due to the stress, but then they will develop some new growth as they recover. Hopefully ours make it. They were rather cold when I pulled them out of the box. Can I just say it was a little piece of heaven when I opened it? It was like a little citrus fragrance bomb went off in the room. Yummy!