Fuzzys vs Snowzilla

I hope you all can view the YouTubes. This one is from the last storm which the city folks have dubbed "Snowzilla." We got about 14 inches of superfine powder. That's more than our little grader can move efficiently so we had our friend Tim Boone of Boothe Creek Excavating come plow for us. Thank goodness! Even with his beefy truck and professional plowing equipment he had trouble moving this snow. It took a couple extra days for him to get to our part of the county. Poor us.. snowed in and only four sleds, two dogs, skis, and a big woodpile to keep us cheerful. We did run out of milk for our tea but I keep a box of soy milk for just such emergencies.

Anyway, here you see Mr. Fuzzy retrning from his first cross-country skiing expedition in more than 15 years and the reaction of the doggles to this strange monster emerging from the pasture.

The current storm has been a (blessedly) damp squib for snow but the high wind warnings were absolutely accurate.

I totally get it now when mothers of young children say they work all day and get nothing done.

I'm taking a much needed break from the kitchen to say "hello, I ain't dead!" So, um, Hello. I'm really very much alive and Mr. Fuzzy doesn't keep me shackled to the canner ALL day. (Just kidding honey.)

Having Young Master Rufus in the kitchen most of the day with me has really created a rhythm to getting things done. In the morning we play games like "down-stay-get treat" and "let's get all worked up and then calm down now." Then Mr. Fuzzy takes the wee lad up to the mailbox to get the mail and we play another round of "sit up vs down" before Rufus curls up in his kennel for a nap.

That's when I cut up vegetables and get the dehydrator humming. With all the moisture in the air these days it only gets a new batch once a day. (We've had several weeks where the low humidity was above 60% and one week where it never dropped below 75% water. Yuck!) When I'm done it's time for lunch which always wakes the dog up.

After lunch and a wee stand on the porch to confirm that the rest of the universe exists I take advantage of afternoon nap time. All eleven animals siesta at the same time so it's quite calm until three or four o'clock. This is when the canner and stove top gets going or I make up things for the freezer.

This year the canner is mostly dealing with fruit while the veggies are being dried. Next year I hope to have things in a more sane order which will allow me to branch out into pressure canning some vegetables. For now, the goal is to just get the food saved in whichever manner is most efficient and tasty. I will be attempting to can some tasty soups, baked beans, cakes, quick bread, and steamed breads once cold weather sets in and I can have the oven on all day.

Yes, you read that right. Canned cake and bread. Look here for the method.

So, back to my day these days. About 4 o'clock the first kitten awakes, comes crying for a cuddle, wakes the dog, and enjoys a game of "sit on the chair and whack the dog" before changing over to a game I call "race for the furthest exit and lie just beyond Rufus' nose." This is repeated five or six times over the next hour depending on the feline boredom level. If I'm smart, all the food is off the table and I'm doing dishes. Rufus is strangely calm if I'm washing up. Otherwise it's a game of tug or taking him down to the garden for an hour or two.

Then it's up again to make dinner followed by more of our morning amusements when Mr. Fuzzy and Rufus have returned from their romp. About 9 o'clock I declare a collapse and go read my herb books. Mr. Fuzzy recently gifted me American Household Botany: A History of Useful Plants, 1620-1900 by Judith Sumner and it's a great read.

That's what I've been up to of recent. Except last week where I got to meet my new (excellent) dentist, get yet another root canal, and discover that I'm exceptionally sensitive to nitrous oxide. I can wholeheartedly recommend the Doctors Huff DDS in Christiansburg, should you be in need of a dentist.

timberrrrrrrr

Mr. & Mrs. Fuzzy had a truly exciting and educational day on Monday when Britt Boucher of Foresters, Inc., came down from Christiansburg for the day. We hired the redoubtable and eminent forester to cruise our wee farm and teach us about the forest and its health. What a day - we walked most of the day, stopping about 1:30 for a pot roast lunch prepared by Mrs. Fuzzy in the crockpot (so she could walk, too). By the end of the day, Britt had given us a six week class - and hopefully we earned passing grades.


Britt really knows how to crash through brush... and so we finally found the mysterious SE corner of the farm, which lies back in some truly wild country. In that area, there was bear scat and a fairly large clear bear print from a hind foot (see photo). He pronounced our front forest in good health and lovely. The back half needs desperately to thin out the barberries, wild roses, hawthorns, etc. The farm contains nearly every tree native to the area, a diverse community. It also has several dense stands of spice bush, an indicator species proving the quality of those parts of the forest. While we stood at the NW corner of the farm, being educated by Britt, I heard a meow in the distance... I called and it was my devoted Jack Tar who had come out searching for us!

By dark, the Fuzzies were getting tired but that was offset by our excitement of the various discoveries of the day, including Britt, one gem of a guy.

Wait! Wait! You forgot the best part, Mr. Fuzzy! Not far from the bear scat area was the mother load of wild ramps. I can't wait to try one!!!!

Well Hush My Mouth!

I'm sure we don't qualify for the pinko-greenie-sustainable nut badge from the Green Crusaiders but I do try to shop in a little more ethical and sustainable way than "on average." (It also happens to be a bit healthier and cheaper too.)

We do USDA Organic at the grocery where possible, choose loose veggies over the shrink wrapped stuff, use biodegradable detergents, LED and fluorescent light bulbs, along with eating local pastured eggs and dairy. One of our exceptions, though, is soup. The "ethical" brands are uniformly pretty lousy in the flavor department so Mr. Fuzzy gets stuff from the "conventional" isle. (Do they separate them to prevent cross-breeding?) You might appreciate my surprise when I started reading the label on Campbell's "Select Harvest" soups:

The ingredients are composed of actual food.
The label is printed with soy ink.
The label is of 75% recycled fiber.
The line has no MSG, no colorings, no unpronounceable additives and relatively low sodium.

And it doesn't cost a fortune or taste like crap!

Way to go, Campbell's! You've beat Whole Paycheck at their own game while canning a soup that I, Mrs. Fuzzy, will willingly eat. That's no mean feat.

Dinner Out

Mrs. Fuzzy occasionally needs a break from being chained barefoot to the stove and Mr. Fuzzy has that intense hankering for a dish or two she doesn't know how to prepare... thus we have almost always treated ourselves to dinner out once a week. The choices "back home" were legion, although in the summer and ski season, tempered by how long the wait might be to have a table. Back home there were over 200 dining establishments; we know of five in Floyd.

Now that's not a bad thing. They're all good, and except for one not to be mentioned by name, inexpensive and the wait staffs are superb. About twice a month we drive northward on Route 221, a few miles from the village limits, to sample the cuisine at Pine Tavern. Next door is a wonderfully preserved (and functional) 1920s tourist court, the Pine Lodge. The meals are in two forms: individual and family style. For the latter, it is all you can eat, presented in serving bowls for the entire table - and for $11 a person! That is not a typo. You get meats (fried chicken, country ham, roast beef), a selection from a large number of sides, desert and your drink for that price. Moreover, it is well prepared, the waitresses are excellent and the ambiance appealing. Reed, the owner, is always present and always jovial.


So we went on Friday night, did NOT eat the family style (we cannot eat that much) but instead ordered from the menu. There was so much food that Mrs. Fuzzy could not finish her steak and Mr. Fuzzy also had some remaining roast beast dinner ($9.00)to take home the dog.

Well done, Reed, well done.

Making An Inventory

Russ discovered the Computerize Your Assets home inventory program about a month ago. and has been occupying his time entering all his collections. We really like it... especially since it was only $50.

It took a while to learn how to attach pictures but once we got that down it's fairly easy. We can attach as many as we need, too! There are screens and screens of data fields to hold nearly all the data you can imagine, though only a limited number of characters in the open description field. So far, that's the only real fault we've found. After all... how do you begin to describe a pre-production lens in 100 words or less?

Why are we telling you this boring stuff? Because we know what your closets look like.