It was one of those weeks with nothing much to write about. That happens often during the cold months. Most days, I only go outside when I have to, usually to bring firewood in from the front porch. I also have to go down to the barn to do chores every day right now. Normally that would be Josiah’s job, but for the past few weeks he’s been getting home from school too late to do them. He and Hannah are in the school musical this year and they have to stay after school to rehearse. They don’t get home until after 5:00 and it’s getting dark by then and the chickens and turkeys have already gone to roost. The play they’re in, Cinderella’s Glass Slipper, will run two nights, November 22nd and 23rd. Hannah and Josiah both have big roles – Hannah is the Fairy Godmother and Josiah is Prince Charming. Once the play is done, Prince Charming will be back doing the chores again – and just in time. It’s getting cold enough that we need to carry water down to the barn most days and I’d rather Josiah strain his young muscles than me strain my old ones.
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| Here is the ad for the high school musical. |
We had snow on the ground most of the week. It finally melted on Friday when the temperature rose into the 40's. That evening I decided to linger outdoors after the chores. I had a pile of scrap wood in the fire pit that I wanted to burn, pieces too big to fit in the wood stove. It felt good to stand in the twilight and feel the warmth of the fire on my face and the cold of the approaching night on my back. It will be the last fire of year. As I stood there, the moon rose over the hill to the east in a sky the deep and luminous blue of a Maxfield Parrish painting. The moon wasn’t quite full yet, that comes tonight, but it was very bright.
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| Our yard looked like this most of the week. |
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| The last fire of the year on Friday evening. |
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| An almost full moon rising over Gold. |
Saturday was a great day for the middle of November. It was sunny and not too cold. In the morning Hannah and I took Pancho to the dog groomer for his quarterly haircut. The groomer is over in Hebron Township and we took the back roads, so it was a nice drive. Then Josiah and I spent the afternoon putting new fence around the chicken yard. I’m glad we’re done with that. It looks like the weather is going to turn wet and cold now.
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| Our tom turkey, Thomas II, posing. |
During the winter, one of the things I look forward to is getting seed catalogs in the mail. Usually they start coming after the new year, but this year they’re mailing them early. I get a dozen or more different catalogs and I read them all. Already in my mind I’m planning next year’s garden. I’ve got ideas I’m mulling over, lists I’m making, designs I’m sketching out. The seed catalogs feed my imagination.
I’m reading one of the books at the top of my winter reading list, a book I already read once years ago. It’s one of those books that I always see on the shelf that seems to call to me to read it again. The book is a collection of short stories, The Best of Sholom Aleichem. Most people only know Sholom Aleichem from the Broadway musical Fiddler on the Roof, which is based on his Tevye stories. I love Fiddler on the Roof, it’s one of my favorite musicals, but as good as it is, the stories are even better. My book only has four of the nine Tevye stories, so I ordered a book from the library, Tevye and His Daughters, which contains all of them. I can hardly wait to get it. If you’ve never read Sholom Aleichem, I recommend him. His stories are some of the best short stories I’ve ever read.
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Sholom Aleichem.
We love homemade bread at our house. Stacey is a great baker. She makes bread, rolls, cookies, pies, and is famous for her cinnamon rolls. She has passed her skills on to her children. Hannah and Miriam both make excellent pizza crust. Rachel bakes great cakes. Daniel knows how to make cinnamon rolls. Josiah is famous for his pumpkin chocolate cookies and pumpkin bundt cake. And Sarah, of course, is a professional bread and pastry chef. Last week Stacey needed to grind some wheat to replenish the flour bin. A while back, she taught a class at the school on using whole grains and she still had samples of different grains left over from that, so while grinding her wheat she decided to add all those samples to the grinder. She combined wheat, triticale, barley, oats, millet, and amaranth. The smell of the freshly ground grain made her hungry, so she decided to bake some bread. She had to make adjustments because some of those other grains contain little or no gluten. The dough turned out odd, rather stiff and difficult to form into loaves. When the loaves came out of the oven, they were lumpy and deformed. She showed Sarah the loaves on Skype and they had a good laugh together. The next morning we made our breakfast toast with that ugly bread and it was wonderful. It toasted beautifully and was so delicious spread with butter and homemade grape jelly. I told Stacey she needs to make mistakes like that more often.
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| The mixed grains Stacey ground for bread. |
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| One of the lumpy but delicious loaves. |
It’s cold and rainy today, very gray and gloomy looking. At least it’s rain and not snow. The snow is expected later in the week. The Shilligs are home at last so tonight we will have our Sabbath Soiree, the first we’ve had in quite a while. I hear they have a Hallmark Thanksgiving movie lined up for us. I can hardly wait.
Good Sabbath.
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| My Christmas cactus in bloom. |
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| One of my orchids in bloom. |
