Bam! Spring Arrives

The 12 Days of Christmas #9

Don't let them fool you, not even for a minute. The holiday season with toddlers is insanity at its finest. I turned them loose in the living room, unsupervised, and guess what? There were tree ornaments strewn about the place. The wrapped presents had become trampolines to my boy and my little girl, bless her heart, was organizing the ones that weren't being jumped on.


So I brought them into the kitchen while I cooked and turned them loose with Play-doh. As my kids have become more adept at using the Play-doh accessories in the past few weeks, I have come to two conclusions. One: kids don't understand the whole idea of color purity, and they don't really care if their mother does or not. They don't have panic attacks when the pink is shoved in the same container with the green and they don't understand that all of their Play-doh will soon turn a homogeneous shade of reddish-brown.
The second conclusion is that the Play-doh people are wacked. Not only does the Play-doh get stuck to the screw thing in the middle, but as you turn it, it shoots marble size amounts of Play-doh several feet in the air much to the kids' delight and their mother's horror. Try it on carpet for extra fun!

After I got the Play-doh cleaned up and the kids to bed, I returned to the holiday baking. As I mixed peanut butter and lard and cornmeal and flour and bird seed, Danish Cowboy asked me what I was making. "Uh, bird food suet cakes." He laughed at me. We'll see who's laughing when I serve him bird food suet cakes for breakfast tomorrow. As you can see, the Christmas spirit is truly alive and well around here. This pumpkin roll cracked as I was rolling it. But I think I salvaged it with a whole roll of plastic wrap and some fridge time.
And the filling for the pumpkin rolls turned out to be chunky cream cheese rather than the more traditional smooth cream cheese. But it's only for family, so who cares? A little powdered sugar, a hefty dose of whipped cream and no one will know.
My sister saved the day as always with fruit and cheese. If you will recall, produce is limited around here to clementine oranges that cost $2.57 each and may or may not be edible.

I'm saving this for myself. Everyone else can share the chunky pumpkin roll and bird food suet cake, but this basket's mine. Merry Christmas.

The 12 Days of Christmas #8

Winter solstice is, scientifically, the time of the year when the axial tilt of the earth is at its greatest, causing one of the northern or southern hemispheres to be at its farthest point from the sun during the 365 day calendar year. In a traditional sense, it is a time of celebration and the marking of a New Year, perhaps the last celebration before a community would enter the sparse months of January through spring. When I moved West, I forgot to look at the map because I did not also know that I was moving North. The days are shorter in the North in December. Much shorter.
Man can not be inside all of his days and nights, even during the depths of early winter, so we improvise and find spots to play where the lighting is good.
Or we head towards the barn with a really big flashlight and run around in there, exploring old saddles and harnesses and playing with the barn cats.

Winter solstice: thank you for providing me with added hours to look at my holiday lights, but please, run along now. We'll see you next year.

The 12 Days of Christmas #6

I'm having a bit of an identity crisis.
I used to consider myself somewhat normal, somewhat modern, somewhat middle class, whatever that might be. In the past few years, however, I've noticed that my activities tend to be more rural in nature.
For example, we lack hills around here so we share the thrill of sledding with our children by pulling them in a calf sled behind a four wheeler.
As we drove/sledded by the outhouse that Danish Cowboy actually has memories of using before running water was invented on the prairie, it hit me. I have become the dreaded R word. 75 percent of my activities wouldd most likely be classified as redneck-ish.
Then, as I was sitting in the sled waiting for the next round of sledding, Danish Cowboy and my little boy shouted over the barn and across the poop-infested corral to our only neighbors (who also happen to be our in-laws) to inquire whether they wanted to get pulled behind a 4-wheeler through the trees, over the frozen cow pies and by the outhouse. They politely declined. I could feel myself slipping even deeper into redneck-dom.

Is it possible for a child this young to be embarrassed by her family?

The 12 Days of Christmas #3

My tree is simple and sparse, an artificial one purchased the year my children were born. The ornaments are all well-loved, every single one given to our family over the years. Each has a special memory and I cherish the simplicity of the decorations and the soft lights reflecting across our living space. But,

wouldn't it be AWESOME

if my tree really looked like THIS?

And I recently purchased a tripod for what reason?

The 12 Days of Christmas #2

I have a problem with food. Here's the thing: my family used to think highly of my cooking. They would ooh and aah over my creations. They would turn to me to bake something yummy. And then something happened about 10 years ago to change all of that.

This dude appeared and married my sister. Just look at him with his homemade pizza dough with red onions and fennel and sweet potatoes and sausage and some funky cheese and a light olive drizzle all grilled to perfection on a ... grill. And his brownies with some ganache topping with pink sea salt to add a little punch that still tingles in my mouth even though it was a year ago that I tasted these delicacies. He rocked my family's view of the world of food upside down. So now I'm the one that can be counted on for crock pot roast beef and homemade mashed potatoes and fatty gravy and maybe some store-bought white bread with store-bought jelly if you're lucky.

However, what really caused this food situation to reach the boiling point were his Christmas cookies that were so meticulously decorated with such unique colors that you almost did not want to eat them for fear you would never see something so beautiful in your life. Please note: these cookies shown above are not his cookies; these are my vain attempt to copycat him last year. The situation improved slightly in February with my oddly orange-ish valentines.
The situation for this Christmas started out looking pretty grim with this creepy anatomically uncorrect gingerbread goth.

But I kept on keeping on, saving the Christmas trees for the kids to help me decorate,
and letting them take part in a few sprinkle garnishments prior to baking some of the cookies.
Most of the work was done secretly, though, while the young ones were sleeping. I'm fairly pleased with the way things turned out.

Although I did not manage to achieve the smoky gray snowflakes with wisps of white coursing through them like my brother-in-law, Cookie Decorating Take #3 could have been much worse.

The kids even did a most excellent job with their sprinkle-dunking duties. They were so proud of these and that makes it all worth it. (I, however, was not proud of the tree trunk brown color that I created. Dear brother-in-law probably knows the proper colors to mix together to achieve such a thing, but I, being who I am, do not know these things.)
As an added bonus for the weekend (and for you!), I made these Moravian Gingerbread Crispy Wafer cookie things. If you're not stressed and your kids are in bed, try them! You'll like them!

Recipe taken from the Joy of Cooking cookbook (with snarky adaptations from yours truly):

1 cup all purpose flour

1.5 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

0.5 tsp ground cloves

0.25 tsp ground cardamom

1/2 tsp baking soda

Whisk all of that together and set aside. Then beat until well blended:

0.3333333 cup molasses

0.25 cup Crisco or lard

0.5 cup packed dark brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Slowly stir flour mixture into molasses mixture, then knead until very smooth, about 3 to 4 minutes. Divide dough in half and wrap each half in plastic wrap. Place in a cool spot (but not the refrigerator). The bottom of a drafty farmhouse door on a day where the temperature is projected to reach a high of minus 17 degrees works well, although the dough may freeze slightly in this condition as it sits on your living room floor. Cool in your chosen location for 6-12 hours.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees (not 350 as I did).

Pour a glass of wine for yourself. Or make a margarita. Proceed with rolling the dough out on a well floured surface. Get it as thin as you can. Curse as the dough acts too wet and sticks to your rolling pin and then curse 10 seconds later as it acts too dry and cracks into tiny shards. Add flour or water as necessary. Cut cute shapes into it but, warning!: don't use shapes that have lots of appendages or curly-cue edges. Transfer to greased cookie sheet with thin spatula. Ball up the leftover dough as well as half of the shapes that you cut out but did not successfully transfer to said greased cookie sheets. Repeat the rolling process.

Bake for 6-8 minutes, maybe less. Do not overbake. They'll tase funky.

Smile as your kids enjoy eating the gingerbread people body part by body part. Enjoy the holidays. Be merry.

The 12 Days of Christmas #1

When I look back at our relationship, I see that Danish Cowboy and I have a foundation in rodeos in both a literal and figurative sense: i.e. us watching people do insane things in the name of tradition and us getting great amusement out of it all. Take our first date for example. He traveled to Missoula and took me out for a nice dinner. We ended up at Red's playing pool and watching the National Finals Rodeo. I had no idea there was such a thing.
And then take our third date a few weeks later. We met in Billings, Montana for the weekend and he took me out for dinner and you guessed it, a rodeo. As we walked up to the Metrapark Arena, I commented on the cool statue out front. "Oh, that's a nice statue of a cowboy. Anyone special?" Although I didn't know it at the time, Danish Cowboy probably wanted to hide in a cave. "That's Dan Mortensen," he replied. "He's been the top saddle bronc rider in the world blah-blah-blah times. Everybody in Montana knows who he is." I then further tested our young relationship during the rodeo by remarking loudly how cruel I found the tie-down calf roping to be.

Danish Cowboy did not keep me for my rodeo knowledge, obviously, but I have learned my fair share over the years. Like the rule about "8 seconds" and "marking out" the horse as he leaves the bucking chute and having learned these things I am now an expert on the subject when the National Finals Rodeo comes about every December. You can ask me anything during these 10 days and I'll know it all. Please don't ask any other time of the year. I simply won't know. (Eerily similar to Super Bowl time, Olympics time, and World Series time). I've learned to cheer for the locals or the people who used to be locals but have since moved just across the state line.
And you always cheer for the ones from Montana. Always. Even if you've never heard their names before.

And the hometown girls? We cheer the loudest for them and although I've never met her and although I'm not a native, I'm glad she calls our little town her original hometown.
Danish Cowboy abandoned me this past weekend to go to Missoula (again) on a guys football-watching trip. I had a most wonderful time watching rodeo, taking random pictures of the television and wrapping presents for the family back East after I got the rugrats in to bed. I enjoyed the rodeo and I most certainly enjoyed running out of Scotch tape. So I used packing tape on the packages for my 5 year old niece. I am so funny.

Missoula 2009, Episode 1

Driving across Montana is always an adventure. And when you haven't completed the trek from the prairies to the mountains in over four years, you get pretty excited about this sort of trip.

You start out with making a left hand turn off of our gravel road and roaming across some of the most desolate land in the lower 48. Driving across Montana on a state highway becomes like a who's who of local lore and natural history. Smokey Butte, located just outside of Jordan, Montana, is comprised largely of a rocky material only known to exist on the lunar landscape. Surrounded by dinosaur fossils in the Hell Creek Formation for many miles all around, it makes one pause to consider the meteorite theory of death for the large lizards. It also acts as a great little butte for the local television antennas.Did your parents ever tell you the one about when they attended a one-room school house? Don't doubt them. They still exist.

Certainly you've heard the rumors about the missiles that are buried all across Montana just in case the Russians start to act up a little. Again, don't doubt them. They are true. The road that we traveled contains at least five of these little outposts, staffed by either the most trustworthy elite members of the armed services or perhaps the misfits in the armed services who were banished to a lonely stretch of prairie. I haven't yet decided which of those is the case.
The best part of the journey is when you approach the Rocky Mountain Front. It is a place of dreams, an ethereal sort of landscape where the mountains abruptly meet the prairie and the clouds and colors hang over it creating a mood unlike any other place I have seen. Except on this journey (and the return one), the clouds hung just a bit too heavily.And because this is Montana, you just never know what to expect.
Yes, it really does say 8 degrees. Rogers Pass on the Continental Divide is the coldest place on record in the lower 48.
Lincoln, Montana: A quaint little mountain town that comes alive in the winter and is also the Home of the Unabomber. Interesting side note: It is also the home of Hi-Country Beef Jerky. Danish Cowboy was very late for a date with me when I was attending graduate school in Missoula. He told me he had stopped to tour the beef jerky factory, when in fact, he had taken an alternate route around the state to purchase an engagement ring. I hope. I hope he didn't buy the ring at a beef jerky factory.
And all of a sudden you then find yourself in the famed Blackfoot River Valley, which is why I came to Montana in the first place. Although filmed on a river several valleys away, the Blackfoot was the integral part of the story in A River Runs Through It. The real Blackfoot was too sick, too mis-managed to play itself in the movie. But all that is starting to turn around. And I no longer live anywhere near the Blackfoot and I did not find Brad Pitt. But I did find Danish Cowboy and a beef jerky factory engagement ring. So my little adventure west turned out okay, after all.

When you finally travel the last five miles of the trip on an interstate through the Hellgate Canyon and cross the Clark Fork towards the University of Montana, you know you are home. Missoula's the best little town in the world and I can't wait to share it with you.