Family?

How do you define “Family”? Maybe it’s just you and your spouse. Perhaps you have a couple of kids and parents included. I was thinking about this the other day and realized it’s really a pretty hard thing to define sometimes. Of course when I’m asked how my families doing, the first ones I think of are my wife and kids, who wouldn’t? But really I think more and more it’s about the people that you chose to allow yourself to let in.

The last few years have made me have to re-think how I look at it. I’m forced to get a little more personal here than I usually do, but I think it’s with good reason. My wife and I have three boys that live with us. They’ve been with me since the youngest was just 18 months old. You see, I’m not their biological father, although I did adopt them about 6 years ago. Their biological father was A~’s ex (Heretofore referred to as X~) and there was a time that we had a hard time dealing with some of the issues that naturally come about in such a situation. We wanted things one way, he wanted them another and of course that left three little boys in the middle. There came a point when he and we came to decide that it was best just to let me adopt them. We would have the control over their future that we were so worried about, and he wouldn’t have to be so caught trying to fill a position that he seemed to be having a hard time coming to grips with. It was a blessing, I think, for all of us and is something that although it took a couple of years to fully digest, has benefited all of us greatly.

I can’t speak for X~, nor would I want to, but I assume that he’s had problems with me in the past just as I have had with him; that, I’m sure, was unavoidable. Here’s the thing though, over the last couple of years we seem to have found some oddly peaceful way of all coexisting that I never could have imagined, but am so immensely grateful for. It’s not even just he and I that have found some commonality but rather that all of us, in our hopes for what would be best for our boys, have.

So why am I talking about this? Because we just had a Thanksgiving evening that was unlike any other that I ever thought I would have, and you know what? It was good. A~ and I had family over for the evening. But to define it as such takes a little bit of creativity. You see, it wasn’t just her and I and the boys with her dad and his girlfriend, but also X~ and his mom and her husband who is not X~’s father. Two distinctly different family components came together, hers with her father and his with his mother. And each of them came with someone that wasn’t related to A~ or X~. Then there was me, not in anyway related, biologically anyway, with anyone at the table. What were the commonalities? We all wanted to be together with people we loved. Did we all love each other? No. Hey I’m just being honest here; this isn’t pie in the sky stuff. But I know we all love either the boys, or at the very least the people who love the boys. So we have a choice don’t we? Do we shuttle kids around to each others homes, schedule parcels of time when we all get to be with loved ones, and waste half a day in the process, or do we accept that we have some differences, but that really what matters most is we all care deeply for our families and want to foster that without boundaries?

As it were, we chose the latter and I think we were all better for it. We prayed together, ate together and laughed together. Our children/grandchildren were happy and felt loved. They got to visit, play with and be loved by not only one family or the other, but by both. For our part, A~, X and I that is, we didn’t have to worry about squeezing in a good holiday with the boys in time to get them over to the other house. We got to slow down, enjoy the company and be thankful for the season and for all of our gifts and blessings.

So I ask again, how do you define “Family”? Who do you chose to let in to your fold? Sometimes it really might not be entirely up to us who they are, but rather whether we chose to accept them and be happy with what we have. I do.

I hope all of your Thanksgivings were wonderful and look forward to hearing from you all soon.
P~

Thanksgiving was great.

Thanksgiving was great at our place, I hope it was for all of you as well. (At least for those of you in the states.) A~ set a beautiful table as always.She never ceases to amaze me with what she can do with so little. No new decorations, and even the ones that we did use came largely from thrift stores or we've had them for years. One really good idea that I've found that she does is to find and keep things that aren't trendy but rather are just simple, classy and timeless.
I did the turkey again this year and, if I may say so, it was delicious! Cooking Turkeys is one of the few dedicated chores that I've been given with regard to the cooking, so as it nearly always is with specialists, I've gotten pretty good at it. I stuff the bird under the skin and although I don't generally like white meat on chickens or turkeys, cooked this way I do. It literally drips juices.

I'm keeping this short and sweet as I have a little bit "deeper" post to put up in a minute. Hope you all are doing great ans enjoyed time with family. I did, and I'm ready to write some more.

Talk to ya tomorrow.

P~

Taking a break

There are a couple of times a year when I will purposefully take a blogging break. Thanksgiving and Christmas are a couple of them. That said, I'm checking out for a couple of days, at least from my regular daily postings. I will be working on a post for my other couple of blogging gigs here and there, but most likely won't put anything up again until next Monday.

I wish for all of you, my friends, family and regular readers alike my best wishes. I know many of you are spread around the globe, outside of the US, and that this weekend is just another weekend for you. For me, it is time to spend with family. Work on puzzles, play games, visit and tell stories. It's a time to reflect, particularly at this challenging time for many of us, about our many gifts and blessings and to give thanks for them.

Please know that if your are reading this, whether your local to me or halfway around the world, you are one of the things I am thankful for. I enjoy, more than almost anything, the interaction that we share, and the community that seems to be building here. Whether it's a holiday weekend for you or not, enjoy it and emrace it.

God bless!

P~

More goodies!!

As promised, this evenings post is a continuation of yesterdays post in showing the sweet goodies that A~ and I were gifted by her Mom. Today's installment, the food dehydrator that she's had, if I understand correctly, since A~ was a kid but never really used very often. We know how to fix that problem!! I hung a lot of the herbs and things this year that I pulled from the garden but it would be great to be able to dry some this way as well. And then there's jerky, and fruits, and veggies...and...oh you get it, we've wanted one for a while. Ad last but not least, the coolest little "must have" for any home hennery, the egg weigher. I saw one of these on Tiny Farm Blog, and just loved it. Do I need it? No. Did I want one just because, and is it a totally frivolous thing? Yes. But really, how cool is that right?
I just love the chipped and "well loved" appearance of it too. There'll be no repainting of this little baby. The kids like weighing the eggs too.

Thanks again Mom, we, I appreciate the effort you put into finding these things. So nice to know that our family does support our endeavors, and they do, on both sides. Now, what can I dehydrate in the winter???
Till tomorrow.
P~

It's like Christmas!!..... In November?

Or at least it seems that way. A~'s Dad got to our house today, all the way out from West (by God) Virgina for Thanksgiving. He drove all the way out and had planned the trip for months, but how he managed to time it perfectly for the lowest gas prices in years I'll never know. Either way, he's here now and we're glad to have him.

Since he drove out, he was able to bring out a few things from WV that he otherwise wouldn't have been able to. A~'s Mom, at our request, had gone out to a couple of second hand stores in their area to look for stone crocks for us. From what I understand they searched for somewhere in the neighborhood of an hour and picked these two up for us. They're in really good shape too! The one on the left is a beautiful six gallon crock and the other is a two gallon one. We've looked here for crocks, and have only found them in one shop. That six gal one would have probably set us back close to $150.00. Hence, the reason we have been thus far crockless. Ilex, a blog-friend has a beautiful collection of crocks that I've been so envious of, and she made a great point the other day in a reply to me, as a matter of fact, that was pretty spot on I think. Crocks are one of those things in American culinary history that really don't exist in the west. I mean I'm sure they were used to a point, but were never as big as they were in areas east of the Mississippi. We have some now though, so fermented pickles are on the radar for next season, and oh the sauerkraut I can make in that six gallon baby!! We had some tonight as a matter of fact, after we unloaded the crocks and got to talking about them and the things we'll make, which naturally lead to talking about kraut, which made us all hungry. Fortunately for us, my latest batch of kraut has just gotten edible and we had kielbasa and brats in the fridge so that was a no-brainer.

So here's what I need to know, what kind of crock-made goodies have any of you made? Do you have recipies to share, or books that you recommend I add to the winter reading list? I'm really excited about exploring this ancient method of preserving foods. Thanks so much T~, I really appreciate the time and thought that you put into finding these for us, they'll be put to good use!

Oh yeah, and guess what else? That's not it, we got two other great surprises from Mom, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow for those. (Ain't I a tease??)
P~

Growing Possibilities

I've still got a bit of sniffles, but the sore throat seems to be gone and I'm feeling quite a bit better tonight. Whether I felt 100% or not though I'd have to be on here to leave this post for you because tonight I've got some pretty cool news. I'm expanding again.

No no no... I don't mean like my waist line or anything, although next week if history holds true that may be the case as well. What I'm talking about is my writing is expanding again. Some of you may be familiar with a sister magazine of Mother Earth News called Grit Magazine. It is a rural-lifestyle magazine and is, in their words, dedicated to "maintaining the valuable rural traditions of community and stewardship in the United States". Now what's not to love about that right? Well now I get to be a part of that effort, you see I'll be writing a weekly blog for their web site called "Growing Possibilities". You can find it on their Reader Blogs page, (I'm the guy right at the top with the chicken) or link right over to it HERE.

I think that this will be a great place for me to share a lot of the things that I do around my place that differ from the way someone might do it, for instance, on a real farm, or at least on a place with more acreage. I work a much smaller piece of earth than many of the Grit readers probably do, but I think there are a lot of people that, like me, have yearned for a more earth-centric life even if it means making it in their suburban back yard. As I reasearched and learned more about what was possible I found a number of people and families, the Dervaes for instance, that were able to do so much on thier little piece of land and were such an inspiration to me. My hope is that as time goes on, I can be of some small help to others as well; passing it on so to speak. That's a good part of why I've been making it a goal this year to expand my writing, teaching and sharing as much as I can. This will be a great addition I think.

For all of you who have been with me for the last few years, I hope you'll stop by there once in a while as well. I'll generally only be posting something once a week, but it will usually be new information from the stuff I put on here and I'll put a notice up when I do post there. For any new readers coming over from Grit, welcome! I hope you'll take a look through some of the older posts and weigh in when you feel comfortable.

Here's to growing again...Growing Possibilities that is!
P~

Please excuse me...

I think I've caught a bug.
Sore throat, sniffles, you know, the works. I'll try to get something up tomorrow before taking my weekend break. But for now, please excuse me.
Hope all of you are well.
P~