Author Archives: WoolyMama

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Lighting the Solstice

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I have to admit: I kind of love the winter solstice. Not because it’s the shortest day, or even because it means the days will begin to grow longer. I love it because I see so many of my friends rejoicing it. So many of us lighting candles and trying themselves to be a light in the dark. It’s also a day that’s been recognized and celebrated for a millennia; it’s kind of profound to feel that sort of connection with so many of those that have come before us.

We missed the summer solstice at Stonehenge by a matter of weeks, and though it’s become a bit of a carnival atmosphere, it’s something I truly wish to do one year.

Last night we lit all of our candles, turned the tree lights on, and ate cookies to celebrate. Now that I think of it, I should have had some bourbon and egg nog. (Knob Creek Smoked Maple Bourbon and Homestead Creamery natural eggnog is a killer combo!)

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All of my favorite things at this time of year are those that sparkle and glow.

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Now THESE. These you have to make. Meringue cookies that melt in your mouth and are dead easy to make.  I made the espresso ones and cocoa ones (I added red food color because I was planning on adding peppermint with the cocoa and then forgot. Tonight I’ll make another batch and won’t forget – though I’ll make them green).

The recipe is simple and straightforward. Last year I just used a spoon and plopped small rounds onto baking sheets. This year I used a pastry bag and star tip. I do like to make them a bit small so they are bite-sized.

There’s just a few days left until Christmas. I haven’t quite finished my baking, but I got all of my boxes that I am sending out packed today (they’ll likely be late, but……better than never, right?).

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Baking Christmas

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Every year I draw up an ambitious list of cookies I plan to bake, and every year I begin to falter a few days before the holiday, having worn myself out in the process of producing so many goodies.

This year I have an ace up my sleeve: Neve.

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She’s been a great help with prep work and with getting everything into and out of the oven and onto cooling racks.  She’s also made up several batches of Peanut Butter Blossoms on her own.

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As always, we also made a large batch of Hamantaschen.

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Once again I also attempted Springerle. In the past, these cookies have consistently defeated me. This year I tried a new recipe, using King Arthur Flour’s Speculaas dough. There was a lot of chilling, rolling, chilling, molding, chilling, chilling, and more chilling. The results? Not too terrible. Not perfect, though, and I had a hard time with them. Still, I consider it progress!

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We have many, many more to go, but the doughs for our butter cookies and gingerbread cookies are already chilling and ready to be cut and baked.  I am going to try and get the Meringue cookies whipped up tonight to set in the oven overnight.

I also felt overly ambitious (or stressed?) and decided to make the gingerbread for our gingerbread houses this year. I used the recipe from the America’s Test kitchen cookbook and simply measured out shapes for the houses by hand. Neve wasn’t thrilled with how thick it was (and not perfectly straight-edged), but Oona was ecstatic that she had a house she could actually eat this year.

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Emily and I have been stuffing ourselves with all the extra gumdrops. I am going to need a major sugar-detox after this Christmas!

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Tomorrow I’ll work on getting the cookies ready for the kids to decorate, as well as trying some new recipes. That is, if I have the time. Paul is taking them out to see the new Star Wars movie so I can wrap gifts (and drink gluhwein, of course). For a few glorious hours I’ll have a Christmasy house all the myself (and the kitties).

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With The Sweet, The Bitter

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I’ve been absent again, I know. I’ve been hesitating to post about my uncle’s terminal cancer because I wasn’t sure I had the proper words; even now I am at a loss for what to say.

This morning he left us, peacefully, and now we remain here facing down a holly jolly holiday, trying to enjoy life as he would certainly have wanted. He did, in the end, leave Maddie and I the most beautiful gift: his two dearest friends-become-family, and that is going to keep us moving forward.

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Here he is flanked by two of the most wonderful human beings you or I will ever meet – in a picture I completely stole (sorry Heather!)

So now we will focus on joy, and on doing small kindnesses for ourselves and others wherever and whenever we can. I keep thinking about how this year was the first year he expressed interest in having a Christmas tree up in many, many years; his way of telling sickness and grief that it would not win, I guess. We are going to take that baton and enjoy the crap out of this Christmas.

Tomorrow begins our push to get in the holiday spirit – whatever it takes – so get yourself some good bourbon and eggnog and let’s find some Christmas cheer together!

 

 

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Getting Festive Up In Here

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Happy Hanukkah!

We like to celebrate with food every opportunity we can.  So even though we are not Jewish, this time of year there are plenty of latkes and blintzes to be had. If I had other culturally Jewish food in my repertoire, there’d be that as well (I mean, aside from all the cookies and breads and cakes, natch).

Tonight was our blintz night.  We LOVE blintzes. One of the kids usually asks for them for their birthday as well.  Honestly, though there’s a lot of steps, they’re super easy. I whip up some crepes, and fill them with a cream cheese/ricotta/powdered sugar/vanilla mixture, roll them up burrito-style and pan-fry them until they’re browned and hot.

Then I top them with some pre-fab blueberry pie filling and whipped cream. Done! Happy family.

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Then we eat them by candlelight. It’s really the only way to properly enjoy them. 😉

The weather has been working against our holiday spirit – it’s been so warm that we have been sweating while trying to do our schoolwork. In the evening, once it has cooled down again, we’ve been trying to keep the holiday ambience going as much as we can.

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The kitties enjoy it as well; if by “it” we mean chewing on the branches and swatting the candy canes off the tree.

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“Who, us???”

We have had morning frosts, which is a reassuring sign that it really IS winter, even if it doesn’t feel so much like it.

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It would be nice if the cooler weather would hang out long enough for us to wear our nice winter sweaters, though. It’s hard to stay motivated to knit with wool right now and create even more sweaters that will sit unhappy and unused all through the festive season each year.  Not that my Chimney Fire sweater is growing that fast or anything.

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During the week it’s usually evening before I have a chance to pick it up, and I’m pretty tired by then. As for the weekends, well…it IS gluhwein season, and you know wine and cablework don’t mix.

This weekend we’ll be hitting the holiday baking pretty hard; I’m feeling the usual ambition for lots of cookie variety and quantity. Now to figure out how to distill some of Oona’s energy for myself!

 

 

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Wallowing

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Sorry for being absent. We’ve been wallowing, both in the terrible, miserable, excessively rainy weather, and in what feels like the beginning of a terrible cold virus.

We did manage to get our Christmas tree up the day after Thanksgiving; we bought a lovely fat one from the local nursery, and promptly had to buy several more sets of lights for it.  It’s far bigger than what we usually get.

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I love having my little straw goat back out! Which reminds me, have you been keeping an eye on the Gavlebocken?

The kittens, of course, have been ecstatic for such a fantastic new toy! Thank heavens our friend Kim had a cat tree for us to keep them (somewhat) out of trouble.

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Dilly is happy to be on the top, where she can see the birds from just inches away. Poppet and Widget like to hang out below, occasionally taking swipes at the long orange tail hanging down from above them.

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Today they’re all happy to see the sun again, and have warm spots to stretch out.  It’s been pretty dark and nasty the last several days, adding to the overall malaise that I seem to be afflicted with. Even my knitting is growing at a snail’s pace.

The dogs have been tracking in an epic amount of mud (and poop, let’s be honest here), and everything just has felt damp and gross. We’ve all been parking ourselves close to the Christmas tree for some relief from the yuck that has been this week.

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Against my better judgment, I’ve even left the front gate open so the goats could stay on the front porch (they just don’t want to use the calf hutches we have for them) and to keep myself out of the rain when I let the dogs out. They’ve broken several posts on the railings, and I don’t think I need to tell you what it looks like out there now.

But I will show you:

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That’s right outside the front door. It keeps getting wetter and more ground in by the day. Fancy!

So imagine, now, the dogs walking through this to get in the house……and tracking it in with them.  On the plus side (if you can call it that) the kittens enjoy batting around the little round goat poops.

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This is the reality of farm life.  We like to capture and share beautiful, idealized, sanitized pictures of life on the farm, but the reality is so much dirtier, smellier, poopier.

Still, I wouldn’t trade it.

What I WOULD trade, is this headache and sore throat.  There’s too much to enjoy about December for me to feel this way!

 

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Thanksgiving Prep

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It’s almost time for us to submit to our yearly food coma! Among other things, this year I am thankful we are not traveling anywhere.  We are looking forward to a quiet “just us” day of binge-eating and parade/dog show watching, followed by pie with our friends The Stowells.

Today I am working on prepping everything I can in advance of tomorrow’s cookfest. I made cranberry chutney this morning using THIS RECIPE. The only thing I changed was that I swapped out the water for bourbon, beacuse, well….have you met me?

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I am also making the pumpkin bread for the stuffing, which I will finish putting together tomorrow morning.  As always, I’m using Susan’s recipe, because, honestly, it’s what my dreams are made of. You can find that recipe HERE.  I can’t wait! I’m going to serve it in this adorable pumpkin serving dish I picked up at World Market.

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Speaking of all things pumpkin, I tried out another recipe of Susan’s that I can’t get enough of, and I offer up here in case you need a (very) last-minute side dish idea.  STUFFED PUMPKIN

Can I just tell you, it’s the most cozy, homey, delicious ambrosial thing you have ever, ever had.  I made it last week when Paul had the kids in NY with him, and I ate at least half of it myself before they got home and finished it off.

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I let it cool quite a bit before cutting it so that I could get individual pieces rather than eating it like a fondue (though that would be scrumptious as well).

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Really, try it for yourselves.  I used a sugar pumpkin because I could not get my hands on a Long Island Cheese pumpkin for all the tea in China around these parts.

Incidentally, if you’re relatively local to Richmond, Va, there’s a brewery that makes a pumpkin ale that compliments this dish beautifully.

The other food advice I can give for the holiday is THESE dinner rolls from King Arthur Flour.  They are very nearly foolproof, the recipe makes plenty (quickly!) and everyone loooooooooves them.

The kids in particular are looking forward to breakfast – I got some frozen chocolate croissants from Trader Joes for us to enjoy while we watch the parade, all snuggled together in our jammies.

It’s going to be an interesting holiday season with all the new cats around here, but no one seems to care about the potential for disaster, since they’re so darn cute. And they haven’t mastered jumping up on the table yet, either, so there’s that.

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As for Dilly, she’s just as adorable and naughty as ever, but she’s coming around to them. She’s even actually been playing with them. But she still won’t admit she likes them.

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Happy Thanksgiving, all. Hope it’s a warm, cozy, fun, delicious one!

 

 

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Two In One?!

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That’s right! TWO finished objects in ONE blog post!

Actually I have not been nearly as productive as that. I pulled out an old kitty bed project from several years ago and finished it up, and then used my homespun to make a simple cowl.

The kitty bed simply required binding off and felting, but since I have an older front-loader, felting is problematic. I ended up boiling it on the stove for awhile, beating it up a bit with a wooden spoon, and then throwing it in the wash.

It didn’t come out too badly, but there’s still quite a bit more stitch definition than I would like for a felted item.

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Fortunately, the kitties aren’t that picky. They love that it’s wool, and that’s that.

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They’re settling in rather well here; Dilly hasn’t quite decided what she thinks of them yet.  She follows them around, and keeps a close eye, but if they get too close she hisses and runs. Sushi and Mister cat are rather more angry still.  All in good time, I suppose.  I am NOT, however, looking forward to the next several months of bratty/destructor kitten behavior.

For the cowl I knitted up, I simply cast 80 stitches onto my size 8 circulars and knit every round until I had used up almost all of it. Then I bound it off, and voila!

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I’m pretty happy with it. It’s a good, thick, solid cowl; perfect for colder days (that we don’t really get much here in the fall, but whatevs).

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The colors are everything I want them to be and more; like autumn in a cowl!

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Who Turned the Heat Back On?

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After we got used to some absolutely beautiful, crisp, autumn weather, we are back into the mid-seventies now.  We all feel like we are roasting alive!

All of the soups, stews, and warming foods we had planned seem downright ridiculous now.

So do all of the holiday decorations I am seeing going up everywhere.

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The sheep have been chasing the shade all around the field. They’re not fans of the heat, either. It means there are still too many flies around.

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I’ve also had to turn the air conditioning back on; in the fall and winter the back of our house (which is all windows) gets direct sunlight the ENTIRE day. It’s great when it’s cold out. Not so much when it’s unseasonably warm.

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The kittens, Poppet and Widget, are settling in nicely. We had them separated for awhile we we awaited their FIV/Feline leukemia tests, and also because they were so tiny we worried about the dogs stepping on them.

They’re still pretty darn small, but they’re learning to navigate us a bit.

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They LOVE the dogs, and Cini, especially, loves them.

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Widget is only slightly larger than Cini’s paw.

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Had to throw in this picture Neve took of Oona playing in the leaves!

A nasty cold virus has been making its rounds here for weeks now, and we are trudging along trying to get through it.

I’ve been occupied with new knitting; not only did I cast on a pair of socks, but I’ve also started swatching for my next Shepherd sweater AND an additional sweater pattern called “Chimney Fire”.  I couldn’t help myself! After Rhinebeck, i want to knit all the things!

Bring back the cold weather!

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Pumpkin Day, and Spinning Love

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After I bought a bag of wonderful fall-colored roving at Rhinebeck, I could not stop thinking about how I needed to spin it!

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Though I am still very new at spinning, one of the things I learned is that it makes it easier to keep practicing when you are spinning with fiber that you love. So, caution (and thoughts of saving it for when I am an expert) aside, I jumped in and spun that baby up into three spindles.

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Once I had three spindles of single-strand I couldn’t wait to see how it would look all plied together.

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Boy, it did NOT disappoint! I am so in love with this yarn I have made!  It isn’t a very large amount, but definitely enough for a nice autumn-y cowl. Now I can’t wait to get my wheel going again!

In the meantime, Halloween is very nearly upon us, and the kids kept reminding me of the many things that needed to be done, like pumpkin carving.

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This year I let Oona do all her own tracing and cutting. The only help I gave was removing the pieces, since it was a bit fiddly for her.

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They made such a glorious mess.

You know who wasn’t complaining about that, though? The pigs! Pumpkin day means it’s time for their annual treat of pumpkin guts.

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They loooooove pumpkins. In a few days (before total rotting can set in), they will be given the Jack o’lanterns as well. But for now, we are enjoying our day of handiwork!

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Emily’s Raven, and my “Nightmare Before Christmas” theme.

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Oona’s pumpkin

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Neve’s pumpkin.

Now that Pumpkin day is accomplished, there is only really Trick or Treating left. Tonight we’ll watch Hocus Pocus and bask in the last remaining glorious bit of October before it is done.

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Autumn Birthday

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Sunday we drove out to our friends’ house to celebrate their son’s 7th birthday. Thankfully the weather held,  and we were able to mingle outside and enjoy grilled bratwurst and fresh oysters.

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And did I mention it’s beautiful out at their house in the fall?

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Kirby, the welcoming committee.

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Paul and Emily missed out on the fun, due to a bad cold that is making its rounds. Paul is actually still down with it, and home from work today. I’m trying to power through today, and make some garlic chicken soup to aid in recovery.image image

Neve helped with the marshmallow roasting.

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Oysters! I actually got Neve to try one; she wasn’t thrilled with it, to say the least!

Lisa and Will always throw one heck of a party, and being out among the changing leaves on a mild October day with a great group of people……well, how can you go wrong?