Spring? Already?

Getting out in the (finally) sunshiny weather to do some homestead chores had me covering three full seasons today, and seeing some rather disquieting signs of a fourth. Bring in a 2-day (and night) supply of wood for the wood stove, because it’s still in the 30s at night and mornings are decidedly chilly. But days are in the high 50s to mid-60s, and absolutely glorious with the whiff of spring. Even as I finished (finally) harvesting beets and digging potatoes from last fall’s crops. Which didn’t manage to get harvested before the holidays descended upon me but weren’t in any real danger of destruction during what has been one of the mildest winters in all my 20 years here.

Basket and garden fork in hand, I wended my way to the bottom tiers from the bricked herb and rose garden below the grapes. Noticing how green the mints are, when they’re usually nothing but scraggly sticks in January. When they’re not under an accumulated couple of feet of snow. The thyme is brown, but the oregano has fresh green leaves low on the plants. The rosemary is still thick and green, thicker even than when I cut it down to nubs in November. Every single one of the sages is putting out leaves, including the potted sage I forgot to bring indoors to keep me company. The chives are still standing, and here’s new leaves on the parsley too. I’ve never seen that anywhere north of Florida.

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A Merry Christmas Re-Post

This was originally posted to this blog on Christmas Day of 2007. It still applies, even though it’s not a white Christmas here at the ‘stead this year. Best of holiday wishes to one and all…

During this 2007 holiday season, it seems the children are all nestled asleep in their beds, with visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads… oh, wait. You say the “children” are all teenagers now, terminally bored with Christmas and expecting a 10-gig iPod loaded with every album too objectionable to be played in public, plus keys to your a car and $400 worth of “Prison Chic” pants that hang somewhere around the thighs and show off their underwear?

Did the fudge never set, so you had to run to the store to buy enough ice cream to disguise the un-set fudge as super chocolate syrup? Were those tollhouse cookies hard as a rock, breaking grandpa’s dentures with the first bite? Did cousin Jim finish off the entire bottle of rum you’d brought for eggnog before passing out under the tree? Did the dog eat that perfect glazed ham before you could get it into the oven to heat? Did it snow during the night and hide all the firewood you’d stacked somewhere in the yard for the Christmas Eve fire? Are the in-laws insisting on watching Enemy of the State as a “Christmas Movie” instead of It’s a Wonderful Life for the 16th time?

Be of good cheer, enjoy yourself anyway, and…

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Can Job Stress Kill?

This is one of my pet-peeves about modern American culture: most people live to work, rather than working to live. Everything is done in the name of the career, and very little is done in the name of physical and spiritual well-being.

I wonder if more people realized that their bodies are their most prized possessions and are more important than their careers, whether people would choose jobs for reasons other than just money. Especially if they knew that certain jobs can kill you through stress (See the infographic below from HR MBA). Part of the problem with our economy and society is that everything gets evaluated by the bottom line, the almighty dollar. So your value as a person is often equated with your career and the amount of money you make.

Start making choices for your quality of life!

From: HumanResourcesMBA.org

Dessert Fads in 2011

Even though everyone enjoys a bowl of ice cream or a few cookies, there are still major trends in the dessert industry every year that overshadow the classics. A handful of delicious sweets always gain huge popularity and spark tasty and beautiful dessert creations. These are the top 5 dessert fads of 2011 and a breakdown of when they were most popular online. I’ll also take a stab at predicting what the biggest trend of 2012 will be, so if your sweet tooth is acting up, you might want to grab a brownie before you read another word!

Cupcakes

Many people said the cupcake fad would die in 2010, but these tasty treats are still going strong, and it doesn’t surprise me in the least. Why go back to eating cake when you can have an adorable, mini cake individually frosted and flavored? The variety of decorative possibilities and the controlled portions make cupcakes an amazing choice.

And cupcakes’ popularity remained steady throughout 2011. In fact, their biggest peak was in April of 2011, proving that the doubters were wrong about cupcakes’ tapering popularity. So there you go, cupcakes. Don’t let the naysayers get you down. (And yes, I am directly addressing cupcakes. Don’t judge me.)

Cake pops

Cupcakes aren’t the only miniaturized cake treats getting attention. People are loving cake pops, which are basically little round pieces of cake on a stick, hence the “pop” part of the name. Instead of having traditional wedding cakes, many brides and grooms are choosing to go with cake pops to put a modern twist on an old-fashioned dessert.

Cake pops are at their Internet search peak in October, probably because October is one of the most popular months to have weddings. Not only have married-couples-to-be noticed the cake pop trend—even commercial retailers like Starbucks have spotted the fad and started selling the pops in their coffee establishments. Nice looking out, Starbucks.

Macaroons

Despite looking like the Pretty Patties SpongeBob invented (Google it), macaroons will delight your taste buds. The French type is sweeping the dessert world, and while the coconut variety is popular, the multi-colored ones more frequently appear at weddings because they add both flavor and decoration to the dessert table.

Macaroon hype peaked in April and experienced a second worldwide Internet search peak in September, though that’s just for the search term “macaroon,” which would also include the common coconut variety. The search for the term “French macaroon” peaked in March and October. Looks like people need their treats at their weddings and in the spring!

Whoopie pies are also getting attention on the wedding circuit, and just like every dessert listed before them, theytastelike they belong to the cake family. (Sensing a trend within a trend here?) It’s essentially a cake sandwich with cream or frosting in the middle, which means making these things is always a good decision.

Whoopiepies were searched online the most during the months of February and March, and while they’ve been less popular than the other desserts on this list, they’ve maintained a steady interest throughout the year.

Finally breaking from the cake theme, pies of all types made a real showing in the dessert world this year. From apple to chocolate cream, people have a taste for pie these days, which is sparking more and more shops to open up that are strictly dedicated to baking and selling homemade pies.

In terms of search popularity, “pie” blows everything out of the water, though we have to assume some of these searches were actually for “whoopie pies.” Poor whoopie pies — never getting any of the credit.

2012 trend prediction: Homemade packaged desserts

Baking enthusiasts have been whipping up their own versions of classic packaged treats like Hostess Twinkies and Cupcakes this year, and it looks like it’ll be a trend that’ll really gain some steam next year. Dozens of recipes exist on recipe sites like Recipe Finder and foodie blogs for homemade versions of Pop-Tarts, HoHos, MoonPies, and more, but this trend seems to have started toward the end of 2011. Let’s hope 2012 brings us delicious,non-processed versions of the treats we loved as kids.

Conclusion

Cake’s boring. Or at least that’s what seems to be going on here. Cake is like a super popular, old-school TV show that’s now the cause of four amazing spin-offs. Appreciate pies and cake-like treats for these last few months, because new trends will be arriving in 2012 that will surely grab our attention and satisfy our sweet cravings!

Best Thanksgiving Perk: Cranberries

Thanksgiving is just over a week away, which means one of my absolute favorite fruits are now being sold fresh in bags – often on half price sale – at grocery stores everywhere. For Thanksgiving I use just one of those 12-ounce bags to make my famous Crackberry Sauce (regular whole cranberry sauce with a bag of frozen blackberries added). But I buy as many as I can afford when they go on sale so I can dry them as “craisins.”

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4 Safety Features That Lower Car Insurance

The nation’s highways and bi-ways are safer to drive on now than ever before. With the help of modern technology, car manufacturers are equipping vehicles with various safety features that can prevent and reduce auto accidents. While purchasing a car with these safety mechanisms can keep you and your family safe, it can also help you put money back into your pocket.

Many car insurance companies offer significant discounts to individuals who own or operate a vehicle that is equipped with certain safety features. Cars with the following four safety features are known to produce lower auto insurance quotes:

1. Automatic Seatbelts

Manual seatbelts that require drivers and passengers to buckle-up can be easily forgotten. Car insurance companies offer discounts to individual driving cars with automatic seatbelts, as it is almost guaranteed that the seatbelt is strapped when the car is in motion. With over 15,000 lives being saved each year because of the use of a seatbelt, it’s no wonder insurance companies give drivers with automatic seatbelts a discount.

2. Tire Pressure Sensors

Tires are one of the most important features on a vehicle as they are the only things that separate you from the road. While they are the most important, they can also be the most dangerous. Tires with low air pressure can cause problems with steering and moving the vehicle, which can result in an accident. Likewise, too much pressure and the tire can explode, causing an accident.

Car insurance companies offer discounts to those with a tire pressure sensor as it can reduce the likelihood of being involved in an accident. A tire pressure sensor will alert the driver when the tires are over or under-inflated, giving ample time to fix the problem.

3. Lane Departure Warning System

Whether due to falling asleep at the wheel or distracted driving, lane drifting is a problem that can result in serious and potentially deadly accidents. Vehicles equipped with lane departure warning systems use motion sensors to detect when a car is traveling close to the painted highway lanes. In an effort to alert the driver and bring their focus back to the road, the warning system will issue a beep.

4. Blind Spot Alert System

Every vehicle — no matter how big or small — has some type of blind spot or reduced area of visibility, where drivers are unable to see vehicles traveling in adjacent lanes. Without the ability to fully see other vehicles, drivers have an increased chance of getting into an accident when changing lanes. Car insurance companies support the use of a blind spot alert system as it alerts drivers when cars are traveling in the dangerous no-visibility zone and prevents them from making lane changes that can result in an accident.

The advanced technology of vehicle safety features has created a win-win situation for drivers. They are able to drive safer and save money. What safety features will car manufacturers come up with next that offers these same benefits?

Things to Do with Fallen Leaves

As we quickly approach November and the portion of the year when things are mostly bare and brown instead of lush and green, I thought it might be a good idea to talk about things we homesteaders can do with all those fallen leaves that will help our general productivity over time.

We were gifted with one of those noisy, gasoline powered leaf blowers a few months ago when a friend moved from the countryside back into town and had no further use for it. Made me chuckle considering the fact that we live in the middle of the southern Appalachian forest – “thick” by anyone’s standards – and have enough fallen leaves to drive most towns crazy. Worse, living where we do we also get fairly regular fires that love nothing better than a good thickness of dead leaves to burn. I’ve learned through the years that the low-level “brush fires” that don’t burn much other than the leaf fall and a few scraggly saplings are actually good for the forest. So long as they don’t manage to get hot enough to engulf trees. Heck, most of the mature trees can (and have) survive the ground fires just fine, a bit blacker around the trunks than they used to be. And kudzu, of course, loves fire. Always comes roaring back twice as thick as before, and does way more than its share of eating forest trees, engulfing dead cars and stray cattle herds overnight.

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Another Autumn Goodie: Rosehip Syrup

My daughter went a little wild this year “trimming” back the grape vines that wandered over the fence that badly needs repair (rather than simply repairing the fence), so diminishing the ripening fruit that we got basically nothing from them this season. Ah, well. Happens every so often. They should be back in bulk next year, and I’m fixing the fence over the winter so she won’t be tempted to prune out of season. What she didn’t manage to trim into oblivion this year are the wild roses (sweet briar) bushes on the up-ridge side of the driveway. They can get out of control pretty easy, and always want to drape down into the driveway to cause scratches (and sometimes blood) to people who park too close.

So I’m the one who did the pruning this year, and I was very careful to hardily discourage growth on the driveway side, while encouraging growth on the ridge side. That allowed for a pretty good haul of rose hips this past weekend by my grandson. In previous years I’ve simply put the little hips – sweet briar hips are about half the size of dogwood berries, not the fat wild persimmon sized hips of garden roses – into a jar in the freezer to add to teas made over the winter. Especially the colds/flu tea we drink a lot of to keep the viruses away. But this year we made rose hip syrup, and I’m definitely a convert as I drink my morning coffee sweetened with it.

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Woodstove Maintenance

As the hardwoods peak and shower our homestead with a bright blanket of multi-colored leaves, the resulting re-emergence of the surrounding mountains reminds me that cold weather’s coming fast and things here on the ‘stead have to be squared away for that inevitability. First on the list of things to do, of course, is woodstove maintenance.

Our woodstove is a custom job, came with the cabin when we bought the place. It needs to be blackened, as the surface does tend to become a bit pitted and rusty over a period of years. We could use a coat of gun blue, but we usually just get a can of good ol’ stove blacking from the hardware store and apply that. Once it’s on, it needs to be fired up to set, however. And that of course requires cleaning the stovepipe and making sure all the joints are sound (or get replaced, also something that has to happen every few years). And while we’re at that, cleaning out all the packed ashes leftover from springs last cold nights has to be removed, the lining bricks re-set, and all the grates through which the stovepipe passes have to be meticulously cleaned of accumulated cobwebs and possible flammables. A well-maintained woodstove provides reliable and welcome heat for decades whether it’s free-standing or a fireplace insert variety. Without said maintenance it’s a fire hazard for which you may find your insurance lacking.

So now that at least the start on the winter’s wood supply has been cut, split and stacked in a convenient location, here’s the basic overview of “How-To” do whatever else needs doing…

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Comfort Food from the Fall Garden

If you’re like me, having to wait until November 1st before the kids (or, in my case, the grandkids) will allow me to process the pumpkins, making simple but delicious meals out of what’s still coming in from the garden at this late date can be a challenge. There’s not much out there right now, mostly the last of the peppers, some scraggly red kale still struggling along as the fall kale is just now coming up, the herbs still being cut and slowly dried for winter, the potatoes still safely stashed underground to be dug as needed. Oh, and those pesky but delicious cherry tomato volunteers that become tolerated weeds depending on where they grow (and I’ll allow).

Nights are decidedly chilly now, though there hasn’t yet been a freeze. Days are gorgeously mid-October, the reds finally kicking in to add their richness to the yellows of the fall leaf color scheme, all but the oak leaves will be gone before Thanksgiving. The grandsons have been spending their school weeks in town since the semester started at the Community College due to a shortage of motorized gad-about(s) since the pickup died last spring. That leaves hubby and I with four actual days a week just to ourselves, something we’ve never enjoyed at any time in the 40+ years of our lives together. It can be quite a challenge to suddenly go from a lifetime of cooking for a fluctuating hoard to making dinner for just two light eaters.

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