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When we were at Jack’s last weekend, we spent a couple hours on Saturday up on Jack’s prairie watching some brush piles burn, making snowmen and “sledding.”  I didn’t bring my camera, so these photos are all courtesy of Maretta.

Here we are getting ready to leave.

There’s Kyle ready for a winter adventure.

Bryan and Andrew heading out.  That’s the frozen Wisconsin River behind them.

Sylvia walked most of the way up the hill. Here she wanted a carry because her legs were “sore.”

Winter still life.

There’s my handsome brother-in-law!

Sylv and Bryan.

The snow was just perfect for snow balls and snow men.  I had fun rolling up some big balls.

Kyle helps me stack the middle snow ball on the big snowman.

Packing it in.

Bryan pulled Sylvia around in this big tub.  She loved it!

Andrew takes a lick from the snowman.

Kyle and I finish off snowman #1.

This might be the biggest one I’ve made!

After getting a hat and a face and some arm, this snowman gets a hug.

With snow this packable, a snowball fight was inevitable.

No tears were shed during this mayhem.

Bryan’s amused.

Kyle and I went to work and made an Andrew snowman.

While we all goofed off, Jack lit about seven big stacks of dry wood (remnants from a pine stand that was removed a couple years ago).  The rippling flames were beautiful.  And toasty.  Andrew tried to douse the flames of one by throwing snowballs at it continuously for a long time.  He made a bit of a dent in the inferno, but not much.

Finally, we made a Sylvie snowman.  Here, Kyle inserts the paci.  It was holding Poodle too, but that was short lived as the real Sylvie wasn’t OK sharing with the snowman.

The Sylvie snowman is wearing a bark crown.

Matt enjoying a winter day at Jack’s.

Sylvia removes the paci from the snowman.

Here’s our trio of snowpeople.  They are watching the bon fires.  Perhaps in extreme horror.  We spent a while contemplating what the snowmen would do after we left.  Lots of wild adventures were considered à la Snowmen at Night.

Andrew brings home a dried milkweed pod.  A beautiful reminder of seasons past.

So that’s it for photos from Jack’s winter weekend 2011.  Regular attendees who weren’t there, we missed you!!

Twice a year, my family packs up and heads out to Jack’s house on the Wisconsin River.  We’re drawn like ants to honey.

Pictures from our weekend can be found here a sample can be seen below.  Maretta brought her camera, so these photos are a mix of her pics and mine.

Here she and I are swapping lenses and taking pictures of each other…

Pretty Mer.

While Maretta and I were playing with cameras, Michael, Kyle, Bryan, and Matt were playing a board game.  Something about Meeples.

Sylvia twirls like a ballerina.  I packed her clothes for her, and on Saturday morning, I brought her an outfit.  When she put it on, I was a little amazed to see her wearing a complete, coordinated outfit that I had picked out.  I don’t think that’s happened in the last year.  Then she put her pajama shirt over top of her clothes and all was well and normal in the world.

Sitting around…and playing with my new flash.

Oh my.  It’s a birthday cake from Rolling Pin Bake Shop.  Sylvia had requested a cake with purple frosting.  This strawberry shortcake cake was fantastic. Whipping cream frosting.  Thanks to Michael for acquiring it!

Along with purple frosting, she requested candles.  And wouldn’t you know that I forget the cake candles.  Fortunately, Jack pulled through with three candles.  Sylvia’s birthday isn’t until February 11, but we celebrated at Jack’s since Maretta and Kyle were there.  And Tom, Dad, and Michael were all there too (Lisa wasn’t feeling great and stayed home this time).  Our girl was quite happy to be sung to!

Blowing out the candles.  Thanks to Maretta for all these pics.

YUM!  The kids dig in.  I wasn’t sure how Andrew would feel about Sylvia’s birthday, but he was really excited and happy for her.

This was a thickly frosted cake.  And Sylvia ate all the frosting and no cake:)

Maretta photographing.

Tom and Matt have lengthy discussions about big topics while Michael peruses his iPad.

Michael brought a bunch of card games for Andrew, and here he’s making up rules to a dragon game.

Tom acts as my model while Matt holds my new external flash off to the left.

On Saturday, Bryan, Michael, and Andrew all spent a relaxing period in Jack’s sauna.  Andrew was delighted to be “one of the boys.”  He had to run out regularly to avoid over heating.  I think his favorite part was when the three of them plunged into the snow with only their swim trunks on.  Here’s a foot print from my little boy.  Funny to see bare footprints in the snow.

Here we’ve got Maretta knitting, Kyle reading and Michael and Matt playing a game together on their iPads.  Our winter weekend at Jack’s in cozy and quiet and relaxing.

Andrew and Bryan are playing Yatzee.  Again.

And Jack is cleaning up the kitchen.  Again.  Because that’s what Jack does.  As he said, “You may have noticed that I’m not much into sitting around.”  True statement, Jack!  Thanks for hosting us for a lovely weekend!  Looking forward to our summer visit already.

It’s been a nice snow day here in the Dotzour home today.  We got six inches of snow on Monday night and then a blizzard-y 12 inches last night.  School was canceled, most offices are closed, and in general, it seems like the city is in snow day mode.  Bryan is on call for work, and unfortunately, they had some super-major crises going on with the ShopBop website, so he worked intensely from home from the time he woke until about 3.  Now he’s in the quite office…hopefully getting some work done.  Such a conscientious and diligent worker he is:)

While Bryan was hard at work on the laptop in our bedroom, the kids and I engaged in all sorts of fun snow day activities.

Here’s Sylvia preparing her favorite breakfast – English muffins with butter and honey.

Snug inside, we took a peek at the drifts of snow outside.

There’s a bit of snow hanging over the edge of our roof!

I’ve been eying a Valentine’s Day project involving shaved crayons, waxed paper, and an iron.   This seemed like a good morning to give it a go.  I started by using a pencil sharpener to shave down red and pink and purple and yellow crayons.

The crayon shavings are in the little cups.  We took pieces of waxed paper and sprinkled the crayon shavings on half of the sheet.

Here are my two little heart-makers.

I folded the sheets in half, crimped the edges so no wax got out, and ironed the sheet to melt the wax.  It’s a beautiful, kinda magic transformation.  Then I cut hearts out of the sheets.

And I strung the hearts on pieces of string or taped them to our windows.

After that project, I wanted to try something else, so the kids and I decided to make Maple Syrup Taffy.  Thanks to Heather for suggesting this snowy activity!

I took around 1/2 cup of syrup and heated it…

…until it was between 235 and 245 degrees.

The kids had gotten bundled up and went outside to retrieve a bowl full of snow.  When the syrup was the right temp, I poured it over the snow.  After letting it cool for a few moments, I used my fingers to wind it into mushy balls.  The kids got to eat the warm, gooey maple syrup candy.  They thought it was delicious!

Afterward, we read the chapter from Little House in the Big Woods where Laura makes the same treat.

“Laura and all the other children scooped up clean snow with their plates.  Then they went back into the crowded kitchen.
Grandma stood by the brass kettle and with the big wooden spoon she poured hot syrup on each plate of snow.  It cooled into soft candy, and as fast as it cooled they ate it.
They could eat all they wanted, for maple sugar never hurt anybody.  There was plenty of syrup in the kettle, and plenty of snow outdoors.  As soon as they ate one plateful, they filled their plates with snow again, and Grandma poured more syrup on it.”

Bryan had woken up really early and hand-shoveled the drive way.  It was so nice of our neighbor Brett to come by and widen it out for us.

After coaxing my kids for hours, I got them to get dressed to play outside.  Here’s our snowy home.

Our tree swing is almost buried!

Happy snowy girl!

It’s a good day for snow shoes.  As the kids tried to walk through the snow, they sunk up to their hips!

Snow study…

We’d made pretzel dough before going outdoors, and after we came in, we rolled out the pretzels together.  Dough was consumed.

Then there was hot coca and buttery pretzels straight from the oven.  It’s been a good snow day!

I took Bowser in to the vet this morning for a blood test.  He’s down to 7lbs, 4oz, which I think is about a pound less than he weighed a few weeks ago.  Not good.  Here’s a link to the post I wrote on January 4 describing the tests we had done then.  Bowser’s been on a hypoallergenic diet for the last few weeks, and he’s been on prednisone for the last week.  He’s ravenous beyond belief.  He actually steals food from our hands and plates while we’re eating.  But no weight gaining.  Oh, that reminds me that I was going to have them give Bowser a B12 injection while he was getting his blood draw.  Oops.  Forgot about that one.

My feline has decided that he does not like the hypoallergenic dry food I got him.  He is, however, a huge fan of the soft food.  So now I got him some rabbit and venison soft and dry food options to try.  That and probiotics and fish oil (which, strangely, both cats think is disgusting) are all part of the current routine.

Because he is so skinny, because he’s enamored with me because I give him soft food, or perhaps because he senses that he’s sick, Bowser has been super-cuddly and affectionate.  Before Andrew and Sylvia were around, he would sleep under the covers next to me.  But it’s been over five years since he burrowed under the blankets.  However, these last weeks, he’s been snuggling down under the covers with me all night.  He either sleeps like a teddy bear in my arms or with his spine lined up against my spine.  Or sometimes, since he has a thing for my hair, he’ll have his rump under my arm and will stretch his body across my neck so he can knead at my hair next to my ear.  It’s all very furry and cozy and makes for excellent sleeping.

Spooky (Bowser’s brother) has meanwhile been throwing up all the time.  I think he’s been eating the flowers off a cyclamen that I brought home.  One day last week he threw up five times.  And he picked really terrible places – the couch, the bed (comforter and sheets), a pillow left on the floor, the one carpeted room of our house.   I’ve been putting the potted flower on top of the refrigerator at night to keep it away from him.  Last night I forgot, and the dorky cat a) snipped off all the flowers b) ate one of them and c) vomited on me, the bed, and a pillow on the floor in the night.  Excellent.  I think I’m going to send the flower to work with Bryan.  I will say that this constant cat-puking hasn’t helped make the case for spending oodles more $$ to diagnose Bowser:)

***

Hopefully when we get the results back from this blood test (they said it would be a week), we’ll have more to go on about what is troubling my cute black-and-white cat.

Thanks for your friendly thoughts:)

~Althea

I just got home from my morning bootcamp workout, and I had to write a post to tell you about a new song I love.  I listened to it while I drove to and from my workout today.  Both times, it made me cry.  In fact, on the drive home, I had tears kinda dripping down my face.

Here are the lyrics to When the Night Came Around.  I just know you’ll be moved. 🙂

There was a cow.
She made a sound.
The prettiest song that you ever did hear.
And when the night
came around
she sang a song for her friends to hear.

The cow went moo moo moo
The cow went moo moo moo

The cow went moo.

It repeats with a sheep going baa and a horse going neigh.  Then it ends like this.

So when the farmer went down to bed
and no one was around
they met under a star-lit tree
and made music through the night.

And they sang <moo/baa/neigh>
and they sang
and they sang.

And they made the prettiest sound
when the night came around.

This song is from Melissa Green’s album round and round (you can hear it if you follow that link). I find myself laughing at the fact that a song about moo-ing, baa-ing, and neighing makes me cry.  It’s Melissa’s beautiful singing and guitar that gives this song such soul.  Listening to it, I find myself thinking about pure and beautiful things in the world.  This story about some farm animals singing their songs to each other just kinda breaks my heart with its simplicity.

It reminds me of one of my favorite children’s books The Gardner by Sarah Stewart and David Small.  In this book, set during the depression, a young garden-loving country girl is sent to live in the city with a gruff uncle.  The story is told through the letters she sends home to her family.  As the girl plans a big, flowery surprise for her uncle, she writes home that, “I’ve tried to remember everything you taught me about beauty.”  My voice cracks every time I read that part to the kids.  So simple.  Just a little girl doing her best to make it in the world.  Her soul is that of a gardener, and she’s grown up feeling loved, and she wants to share it.

In so many small ways, we teach our children about beauty. From the way we touch and treat each other to the art we make.  Makes me think of another favorite song, Simple Gifts:

‘Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free,

‘Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,

‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gain’d,

To bow and to bend we shan’t be asham’d,

To turn, turn will be our delight,

Till by turning, turning we come round right.

When I go to Andrew’s elementary school and see all those sweet little kids, find my heart filling with hope that each of them will trust his or her song.  That they’ll know that their song is the prettiest song that you ever did hear.  And that all their lives they’ll all find ways to sing to their friends under a star-lit tree and make music through the night.

Yesterday, I wrote a post about my horse Cold Snap.  It got me thinking about memorable incident that happened out at the barn in 1996 when I was a sophomore at college.  I remember writing up the story and sending it to my family, but I can’t find that cleaned-up version.  Instead, here’s a copy of a note I sent to my friend Anne describing that exciting day.

saturday is my day of fun and excitement…

I woke up at 9 and went right out to the horse.  This is the FIRST time i have gotten out there is two weeks.  I needed to see them so much.  It was great.  I drove out there and it was nice to get a chance to just drive and look at the drying cornfields and the sun and blue sky and other people doing non-college activities:>

Oh, Annie, I saw a tree that was so pretty I thought of you.  It was mostly green but the top layer of leaves was turning orange it looked like a burnished orange crown or perhaps more like a fairy had come by and sprinkled magic redish orange pixy dust all over the top.  So pretty in the sunlight:)

So when I got out to the horse, I got their halters and walked out into the pasture and they both ran over, and I pet them and talked to them and tried to figure out who to take out first.

I figured that since _I_ hadn’t had horse experience in a couple weeks I should start out with Valentine.  So I took her out and  put her in the upper barn where I brushed her off.  Meanwhile, I hear Cold Snap starting to run back and forth along the pasture outside of the barn.  He sounded really upset.  I went out and talked to him for a few moments and told him I would take him out in a little bit.  I asked him to calm down.  Well, he didn’t, and this is what happened.

The Interesting Story:

I was in the barn brushing off Val, and Cold Snap starts really making like an insane horse, running frantically across the whole pasture.  He was REALLY upset and running like Secretariet…dirt flying up behind of him.  Actually, it was kind of cute.  My baby had missed me and didn’t want me to be working with Val.  Hey, I was liked.  Hey, what was he doing?  What is that noise?  ohmygod! He was crashing throught the fence!  He was breaking the boards in half!  He was down in the mud!  He was up and leaping through the broken fence!  I ran from Val.  (thank goodness she ground ties well…), and by the time I got to the garage, Cold Snap was coming around the corner to find me.  Snorting, pawing, “I’m out, Mom, I came to find you, Mom.”  “Everything is good, Mom.” “I didn’t know I was that strong Mom.”
Good gracious, you stupid, stupid horse!! So I got a halter on him and put him and Val in stalls in the barn.  (Oh he was fine if he was with Val) then I went out to survey the damage and prevent the other horses in the pasture from getting loose!  Yes sirree.  My well-behaved little baby broke straight through three boards.  broke.  sigh.  well one of the other horses was standing at the break..eating some grain on the other side of these broken boards.  He was like “hmmm.  this is kind of neat.  look, I can _eat_ this grain by just sticking by head through this nice absence of fence.”  So I put the other horses in a different paddock and left Barbara a long note explaining what had happened.

Ahhh, memories!  I do enjoy that story.  And it’s sure to make my brother laugh really big:)

Unrelated but silly pictures of me and Val:

Did you know that I used to have horses?  From 1993-2002, I had one or two horses.  When I was in middle school, a friend won a horse by putting her name in a drawing at a mall hair salon (amazing huh?).  I spent a couple years visiting the barn with my friends, and eventually I started taking lessons.  Then in 1993, when I was a junior in high school, the woman from whom I was taking lessons was moving out of state and was looking to quickly sell her horses.  And so it came to pass that I ended up with my very own horse – Valentine.

It wasn’t until about 9 months later that we learned that when we bought Valentine, we actually got a “twofer” — she was pregnant!  So, in January, 1994, I had two horses!  Cold Snap, Valentine’s foal was born on the night of January 14, 1994.  As his name suggests, the weather was chilly.  In fact, it was a bitterly cold couple of weeks, with temperature around -20 degrees and the wind chill plummeting to something like -60.  Not a great time to be born in a barn.

We wrapped Val’s stall in thick plastic to try to keep the drafts out and had a couple space heaters going.  I spent hours and hours at the barn that week, and at least one night, I stayed overnight with my mom and another friend.  It was so cold that even wearing my super-warm barn boots, I couldn’t feel my feet.  One time, Val stepped near me and I heard a “crack.”  I wasn’t sure if she had stepped on my foot or not and ran off to take off my boot to check my foot for injury since it was totally numb (my foot was fine).

It turned out that Val wanted privacy for her birth.  No one was in the barn when Cold Snap made his entrance.  I remember my mom calling up the stairs to me when the barn-owners telephoned us on the morning of the 15th to tell us that he’d arrived.

Oh, he was so cute!  We had him wearing a big sweatshirt and/or a flannel shirt for the first week until he put on a little insulating weight.  What a silly guy:)

When I graduated from high school, I took both my horses in a trailer up to Carleton College (in Minnesota) with me, and they made the trip up and back many-a-time.  During my junior year of college, I sold Val – spending enough time with the horses had become more and more challenging.

I have such fond memories of my hours in the barn.  The smells, the touch of a horse’s sweet nose (I’d often come home with a very dirty face from kissing all those grubby equines).  Good times with friends.  Meditation.

I hope to have my own farm some day.  Someday, some day.

There are seasons in life for many activities.  My teen years were so much richer for the hours I spent at the barn in the company of horses.  I hope that a future time in my life includes a similar season, full of sweet-smelling hay and grain, leather saddles, dirty jeans, and horsey kisses.

I have a poem about horses on my refrigerator, yellowed and curling with age.  Mom sometimes cut out poems or cartoons from the newspaper.  This is the last one I have from her, and I’ve been a little loathe to take it down.   Maybe if I share it here, it’ll feel OK to move it along.

Kissing a Horse by Robert Wrigley

Of the two spoiled, barn-sour geldings
we owned that year, it was Red —
skittish and prone to explode
even at fourteen years — who’d let me
hold to my face his own: the massive labyrinthine
caverns of the nostrils, the broad plain
up the head to the eyes.  He’d let me stroke
his coarse chin whiskers and take
his soft meaty underlip
in my hands, press my man’s carnivorous
kiss to his grass-nipping upper half of one, just
so that I could smell
the long way his breath had come from the rain
and the sun, the lungs and the heart,
from a world that meant no harm.

Ahh, good stuff.  Cold Snap is 17 years old now.  A middle-aged man.  I wonder if he’s still as fast and furious and fun to ride?  Perhaps he’s still at Hell Creek Ranch in Michigan…riding the trails and living the good life.  Happy birthday, buddy!

Here’s some pictures when he was less than a year…

And here’s him all grown up…  He’s a horse of a different color!

I just re-started work on a cookbook of my mom’s recipes.

Back in fall 2007, back when I was pregnant and working and my mom had just passed away, I took steps toward making a cookbook of her recipes to share with family and friends.  I started in early September with the goal of finishing by Thanksgiving.  And I did get about 40 recipes entered on the computer.  But then I was unhappy with how the software I was using made the recipes look.  And I wanted to add photos or scanned copies of the recipes in my mom’s handwriting.  And I ran out of steam.

However, if you’re interested, here’s a link to version 1.0 of my mom’s recipe cookbook.

<Then, three years go by.  I stopped working, had a baby, started my photography business, and stayed busy-busy!>

Last weekend, spurred by the freshness of the new year, I spent a couple evenings going through my own recipe piles.   I have a loose-leaf binder full of sheet protectors that contain recipe clippings from the last 10+ years.  On top of that binder sat about 5 inches of paper that was supposed to be in the binder.  I went through the binder and culled recipes and then added most of the unwieldy stack of printed recipes, recipes from friends, and all the recipes I’ve pulled from magazines.

Then I started thinking that it would be a great idea to get all that info out of a binder and on to my computer.  Most of the recipes I make these days are from blogs or are from online recipe databases (like EverydayFood.com).  So I got on the new Mac AppStore and saw that there are some cool Mac-based recipe software.

I compared software called YummySoup and another called MacGourmet.  I like that MacGourmet can make printed books.  And that made me think about the book I was going to make of Mom’s recipes.  After downloading the software and pulling out Mom’s pile of dusty recipes, I got really excited about creating a nice cookbook of my mom’s recipes.

So here’s my plan:  I’ll have this cookbook ready and available as a pdf to download or a book to purchase by Mom’s birthday: April 7. I plan to include scanned copies of Mom’s hand-written notes, some of Mom’s cartoon clippings, notes from us kids, and poems that were in her recipe box.

I’ll need some help, and here’s how:

1. I plan to post some early iterations of the cookbook, and I’ll need reviewers.  Let me know if you want to help, drop me a note (adotzour@gmail.com).
2. Back in 2007, several people sent me notes about their favorite recipes that Mom made and stories about times shared around food.  If you haven’t sent me such notes and would like to, I’d love to include more in this book!
3. I’ve got lots of recipes that are either in version 1.0 or are going to be added in this version, but please let me know if you have favorites that you’d like to see included.

OK, that’s my thoughts and my plan and my needs.  Hold me accountable!  I’m excited to complete this project:)

~Althea

When I crack open a new book, the first thing I do is read the dedication and find the acknowledgments page.   Before starting to read, I want to learn a little about who the author is, and for me, the acknowledgments give me a little view into who they are, what’s important to them, and how eloquent their book might be.  I particularly like to see how and where they thank their spouse and children.  Genuine, heartfelt thanks earns the writer lots of points in my book

I just started a book, and here’s how the writer thanks his wife:

Kelly, you are my soul mate, lover, and best friend.  Through thick and think you have helped me become who I was intended to be.

<sigh>  Acknowledgments that leave me choked up are the best ones of all.

I think I should start a running list of excellent acknowledgments.  Do you have any favorites?