This Week's Adventure

I (Sarah) was driving home from work yesterday afternoon. As I neared Elm Street (where we turn off the main road towards home), I saw a red Saturn with a white rag in the window parked on the opposite side of the road. Hmmm, that looks like it could be Mick's car. Yes, I see the Gadsden flag, that's his car alright. Uh-oh. Apparently, on Mick's way to school that morning, the car carried him safely through the intersection, then stalled and refused to restart. It was a pathetic sight, the tired old car parked along Route 41 waving the white flag of surrender. Mick's dad very kindly drove down to help him troubleshoot and see if any life could be breathed into the poor vehicle or if it was indeed belly-up.
I was very impressed watching them push the car back along Route 41 past Elm Street, so they could tow it straight home rather than continuing along 41 and trying to turn around. (Actually, they did a better job pushing the car than I did driving mine in reverse.) While they tinkered in the driveway, I cleaned leeks that we had dug on Monday.
Roscoe insisted on being in the driveway with the menfolk rather than in the house with me. Finally, with some long-distance help from John (thank you!), the car came back to life! So we are still a two-car family, at least for now. :) We took it out for a test drive, and it successfully carried us up the hill. Roscoe's favorite part was looking/smelling out the window.
We inspected the garden
and Marty spotted our first hop sprout.
The rhubarb is going crazy!
This is a pile of trees that Mick has thinned. The trees were planted so closely together that they grew tall but incredibly thin, and if you look at the grove, you wouldn't believe he took anything out, they are still so close.
Then we dug leeks for Marty to bring home.
We have SO MANY LEEKS. It is hard to believe that they are a protected species in Quebec (where the French poetically call them garlic of the forest). Several patches of May apples have appeared among the leeks...
the trout lilies are blooming...
and most exciting, we have scarlet trillium!
Trillium is such a beautiful flower, and the red are Mick's favorite, but we only saw one or two in our wanderings last year. Mick collected May apple seeds last fall hoping we could plant some on our property, and he has been telling me about leeks and looking for them without any luck since last year. We are so pleased to have these beautiful and productive plants already on our land.
Having dug our leeks, we enjoyed sunset beers. (You can see the asparagus trench, the rhubarb, the row of raspberries, and grape trellis posts.)
A lovely ending to a quite unexpected day!

April?

So yesterday it was cold and snowy, and Mick had already turned off the gas to the pilot in the furnace. To keep the house (and Sarah) warm, we cook. Yesterday was pies...

Ma, we used some more canned squash (thanks for helping!), isn't it beautiful?


Sarah made some Little House lard pie crusts. Very nice. Mick tried to make a sort of shortbread crust


Two quarts of canned cubed squash makes four pies. On the two pies with a shortbread crust we sprinkled some of the shortbread...can I call it dough?...on the top. Great taste, great texture.


We tried a hot buttered rum type drink with the canning liquid again. This time almost no butter, and it was the best yet, and it has such a nice color.


Pretty decent pie.


So that was yesterday, and today is still cold, but at least we haven't seen snow yet. Nonetheless cold is cold, so today we made potato leek soup. We started by boiling some ham bones, then tossing in some diced potatoes. After those were cooked down we made some white sauce and added that to the soup to thicken, along with some parsley, thyme, salt, and garlic chives. Some larger diced potatoes went in then, and the chopped leeks. This is our first potato leek soup, and the first Sarah has ever had. It looks good!


Sarah tries out our new pepper mill


She put maybe a little too much in while I was trying to take the picture


And as usual, Roscoe gets the bones



Keep warm!

Leeks in our skillet!

We went out and dug a basket of leeks this afternoon

and there were plenty of leeks to dig! They carpet the forest floor from the West side of the property to the East.

We cleaned them together back at home

and cooked the greens with some broth, saving the bulbs for later. We had the greens with our anniversary meal of cheeseburgers and Heitz Cellars 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon. It's one of the most expensive bottles we've bought (and we got a case, enough to commemorate our anniversary for 11 years after), second only to a bottle of Veuve Clicquot we shared the night my R&R ended and I had to go back to Afghanistan.

In the background of this next picture you can see some of the things Sarah put out to remind us of where we've been. The tube contains an empty of bottle of cognac, that I bought for Sarah on leave: something she could sip when she was lonely. Down and to the left is the pipe she bought for me: something I could puff when I was lonely. Above that is a sculpture that her sister Martha made for us for our wedding, and hiding behind the bottle is a beautiful book my sister Amie made for our first anniversary

Here is some of the deliciousness that accompanied our special evening. We used Mom and Dad's gift for some XXXXX-sharp cheddar (yes, that's quintuple extra sharp!) -- thank you for a thoughtful and delicious gift! We also splurged on some fresh 80% ground beef (don't worry, it was still on sale, just a bit fancier than our normal bargain hunting), sturdy rolls, and meltable burger cheese.

Here's a closeup of the cheese we got for the burgers. Sarah found it. Not our usual sort but we sprung for it, it turned out to be perfect for cheeseburgers

I forgot we had this. Sarah reminded me and cutting the cheese got a lot easier (just what she wanted!)

An anniversary calls for large burgers...

The dinner (with vegetables!)

(un)cooked to perfection



Thank you so much for a great first year, everyone.

-Mick & Sarah