Denise Domning's Blog, page 33

SNOW!

Our Magnolia and the snow-covered field behind it

It never rains or snows in Cornville. That's what all the locals tell us. There's something about the configuration of the mesas and hills around us that diverts weather.

Of course, that's not true. If you look at my posts you can see we've had a few really great gullywashers as well as thrilling thunderstorms. But snow staying on the ground is really unusual. Last year we had 8 degree weather but no more than a powdered sugar dusting of snow. Can't say that this year!  As you can see from the photo there's snow sitting on the ground and it's been there for more than 12 hours.

Even better, the temperatures never dropped too far below 32 (0 centigrade) last night.  With the snow blanketing the gardens I'm pretty certain I won't have lost anything.  Okay, the baby tomatoes (I dropped two pots the other day and had no choice but to plant the infants I dislodged) might be suffering, or maybe not.  Snow is an insulator.

I'm taking pictures now because the sun is struggling to break through the clouds, and the moment that happens all this white fluffy stuff will be gone.  That will really confuse Sedona.  She keeps eating it, trying to figure out what it is.  The kittens, Burtie and Billy, have already figured out what it is: cold and wet.  Billy was at the slider last night (the doofus cannot figure out the cat door–that's ED'S cat, mind you), moving from foot to foot and crying for me to come save him.

All I can say is I hope the snow and cold weather is gone before the chicks get here.  We hadn't counted on trying to keep the barn warm, just the brooder.  Then again, Ed's brooder (the size of a large bathtub, built of wood with screen doors on top) is on wheels.  I suppose we could wheel it up to the house.  Then what?  It won't go through any doors and the garage is as cold as the barn.  (Picture coming as soon as it warms up; Billy and I share a severe dislike of cold).  Mind you, I suggested a cardboard box in the basement for the chicks.

Remember Tim Allen and Tool Time?  That is definitely my Ed.  Well, I'm making him turn that brooder on its side to clean it!

 

Free Kindle Books Mar 14-18

Did we mention FREE?

Announcing

Lucky Days Free Par-Tay

freepartay.com

Discover over 40 amazing ebooks: Romances, Thrillers, Mysteries, Humor, Fantasies, and more!   All FREE at Amazon.com

Fantastic ebooks, many by award-winning and best-selling authors.  There's a genre for every reader's taste.  Romance from sweet to HOT, suspense, paranormal, humorous, historical…we have an awesome range.

If Mysteries and Thrillers are your thing you can't go wrong. Police action, murderous mayhem, amateur sleuths and more.  You'll also find Horror, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and Woman's Fiction…. A fantastic selection!  Got kids? We have books for elementary school age and teens alike.

Don't miss out! Soon these amazing ebooks will be back to their usual prices. Grab them while they're FREE March 14th-18th.

Who says you can have too much of a good thing. You can never have too many great books. Load up your Kindle and tell your neighbors to do the same.

The FREE Par-Tay is a BLAST!  Here are some examples of the

Great Books Available

You like Romance? Don't miss Mimi Barbour's "My Cheeky Angel" or Virna DePaul's "Chosen by Sin." Rita Herron will make you smile with "Marry Me Maddie." Stephanie Bond's "I think I Love You" and my "Almost Perfect" are perfect for the addicted romance reader. Debra Burroughs "Three Days in Seattle" and Nina Bruhns's "The French Detective's Woman" add a splash of mystery and suspense to their romance.

Excited by Thrillers? Ecstatic for Mysteries? Scared by Horror? Tweaked by Sci-Fi? You're in the right place!

Ron Kierkegaard's "The God Particle" stretches the boundaries and Michael Shean's "Shadow of a Dark Star" will open your eyes to new worlds. Michael Paneush's "The Stein and Candle Detective Agency" is a fantastical take on mystery and fantasy abounds in Jack Albrecht's "Osric's Wand" and Vicki Keirie's "Worlds Burn Through."

"Liquid Lies" By Lois Lavrisa dives into secrets, lies and murder, while Shannon Mayer will lead you through ten Horrifying stories in "Ingredients of a Caldron." Nathan Yocum investigates a post-apocalyptic future in "The Zona" and Katherine Owen digs deep in a story of love and loss in "Seeing Julia."

And don't forget to sign up for our Newsletter. You'll automatically be entered to WIN $100 in Amazon Gift Cards.

It’s almost Par-Tay Time…

For the next five days you’re going to see very little about farming and a whole lot about books.  That’s because for the next five days I and my book Almost Perfect are participating in the Free Par-Tay with a TON of free Kindle Books all for a limited time only–so grab them while they’re hot and some of the are REALLY HOT!

 

 

It's almost Par-Tay Time…

For the next five days you're going to see very little about farming and a whole lot about books.  That's because for the next five days I and my book Almost Perfect are participating in the Free Par-Tay with a TON of free Kindle Books all for a limited time only–so grab them while they're hot and some of the are REALLY HOT!

 

 

Peperonata

Here's his workspace. You may remember we built this for him.

This must be the week for recipe requests because I've had another, this one from my wonderful son Justin.  Now that he has his great new kitchen in his Seattle condo he's starting to cook more regularly.  Remembering this dish from a number of years ago, he recently asked for the recipe and being a good mom I forgot for a few days… Sorry.

This isn't exactly a preserve but it's imminently preservable.  During the summer when tomatoes are at their best  I make it up in big batches, throw it into pint jars and waterbath can it for 40 minutes.  It's nice to have it on the shelf  for those nights that I need a quick pasta dish.  I just pop open a jar, add a little sausage–or not–then toss with gluten-free penne pasta.  Top with Pecorino Romano cheese (just like Parmesan only its made from sheep milk instead of cow for those of us who might be lactose intolerant) and add a salad, and that's meal.

Peperonata  (original recipe from Vegetables Every Day by Jack Bishop)       1 recipe makes about 3.5 pints ***note: I don't bother peeling or seeding the tomatoes unless I'm already processing tomatoes and happen to have some peeled and seeded at hand.

 3 tbsps Olive Oil
2 medium onions, halved and sliced thin
4 medium Bell peppers (about 1.5 pounds), cored, seeded and cut in 1″ strips
3 medium ripe tomatoes (about 1.5 pounds), cored, peeled, seeded and diced.
1 tsp chopped fresh thyme leaves (strip them off their stems; the stems are very woody even though they're tiny) OR
1 tbsp dried thyme
~1/2 tsp salt or to taste
ground pepper to taste

Heat the oil in a large saute pan.  Add the onions and peppers, and saute over medium heat until softened, about 6 minutes.  Add tomatoes, thyme, salt and pepper.  Simmer over medium-low heat covered for about 15 to 20 minutes, stirring once or twice along the way.

Maybe exposure to Paris at a young age affected him?

Fill your pint jars.  You can add Fruit Fresh if you want but I've never seen this discolor.  Of course, it's never stayed on the shelves long enough to discolor.  Top with lids and rings and process in a waterbath (the water should remain 3 inches above the top of the jars throughout the processing time) for 40 minutes.

So here you go, Justin!  If you don't want to can it, put it in jars and throw it in the freezer.  It'll keep that way for at least 3 months.

 

Lasagna on a Grand Scale

It's huge...both the pile of wet compost and the garden.

I just finished this years Sister Study survey form.  More than ten years ago my middle sister Stephanie had an occurrence of breast cancer, twice actually, but she's now cancer free (go Steph!).  As a result she asked me to participate in this study which is doing for breast cancer what the Nurses Study did for overall health issues, collecting lots and lots of data.  The questions relate to all sorts of lifestyle factors.  One question was "Over the past month how many hours a day do you spend in hard physical labor."

Wow, that was easy to answer.  For the past month I've been building the largest Lasagna garden I could ever have conceived of.  I think we're up to 7 bales of alfalfa and 21 bales of straw, not to mention a pickup truck load of planting mix from Verde Valley Growers our local and most wonderful nursery and 25 bags of purchased compost.  I've been working on this for at least 4 hours a day every day.  It's been my outlet after spending 4 hours plugged into the computer doing web/server work.  (And after those hours were done there was another 4-6 after dinner to catch up on the work I hadn't done because I'd been outside, but that's a different sort of post–a bitchy, whiny icky one that  I'm not writing.)

You see that pile of black stuff in the photo?  That's WET compost/planting mix.  I've said it before and I'll say it again…if compost goes on dry, it stays dry.  If it goes on wet, it stays wet.  Of course it's easier to put it on dry but then the seeds all wash away as I try to get it to take up moisture.

That said, the first part is dotted with onions, shallots, garlic and other varieties  of  alliums.  My niece Hannah will be glad to learn her carrots are starting to come up.  And now it's time for me to plant my peas.

Shovel over shoulder, sockmonkey hat in place and …Hi-ho, hi-ho it's off to work I go!

 

Jalapeno Jelly

This is all that's left here! No food coloring is in this, just red jalapenos and red bells.

This recipe is for my Scottsdale neighbor Wendi, who several years back invited me to a Pampered Chef party at her house. As we chatted she mentioned that she'd really wanted to serve an appetizer of crackers with cream cheese and Jalapeno Jelly but couldn't because she couldn't find any of this wonderful spicy/sweet/hot jelly at the local supermarket. I laughed, walked to my pantry and pulled out a jar for her. Now that I've moved, she's requested the recipe so she can make her own. Lucky for her, this is one of the absolutely easiest jelly recipes ever. So here it is Wendi!  (And we all know that wearing gloves to make this is a necessity, right?  If you forget, Aloe gel for sunburns seems to do the best job removing the capsicum oil,)

Jalapeno Jelly

makes ~4 pints

2 large red or green Bell peppers, partially seeded
6 green or red Jalapenos, partially seeded
1 1/2 cups white vinegar
7 cups sugar (didn't say it was healthy)
1 pouch Certo liquid pectin

While you're boiling your 4 pint jars or 8 cup jars (to sterilize you'd boil them for at least 10 minutes per USDA) process your peppers and vinegar in a food processor or blender until the pepper particles are pretty dang small.  Place your sugar in a tall sided pot, like a Dutch oven, then using cheesecloth or a loosely woven cotton dishtowel, strain the liquid into the sugar.  Stir well to get the sugar wet throughout, then bring this mixture to a roiling boil.  Let it boil for a minute and a half.  Remove from heat, leaving the burner on, skim off any foam (it's not bad–it just makes the jelly cloudy), add the Certo and return to the heat to boil for another 1.5 to 2 minutes.  Remove from heat and add a few drops of food coloring if you want a more vivid color (I never do).  By now you should see the jelly jelling.  Remove your jars from the water, turning them upside down on a clean dishtowel to drain, then fill them with your hot jelly to just below the screw lines on the jars.  Dip the removable jelly lids into the boiling water,  pop that on top and screw on the lids.  Leave these on the dishcloth.  You should hear them pop as they seal.  (Processing them in a water bath will cause rock sugar crystals to form; I  know this from personal experience.)

That's it!  Now, enjoy.

 

A Cover Dilemma

Hi all,

I'm having a terrible time coming up with a cover for my latest Kindle book, Almost Perfect.  If you haven't read it, this is my "too Modern for me" book set in Regency Era Scotland.  Of course the hero is the great (many times over) grandson of Rannulf and Rowena.  He had to be a Graistan guy. The heroine is Cassandra Marston, a woman with an uncanny ability to play cards.  (Hence the antique cards floating around the cover image.)

Anyway, I'm posting the cover mock-ups here.  Let me know which one you like.

 

choice #1

 

choice #2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

choice #3

Hobbitses

Isn't it adorable? Ed did a great job on the slate tile, too.

 

It's in!  The Hobbit Stove (that's really its name) is installed, linked to the chimney and fired up.  It sits proudly in its little slate-tiled corner, all 18 inches by 11 inches of it.  The stoves are meant for the colorful barges that navigate the canals of England and one of these cast iron beauties can heat a 400 square foot room using 6 inch long pieces of wood in it's tiny little belly.   And, since it's cast iron you can heat water for tea on it's upper surface.  Please note the tiny little cast iron tea pot my mother -in-law brought me when she visited this fall.

Although our remodel of our bedroom/bathroom is only half done we've decided to move back in.  I missed waking up to a view of the gigantic cottonwood across the field from the bedroom.  As soon as the spring begins running again Ed will finish the tile in the bathroom and I'll get started on the clay walls.  But for now, I'm content to walk around the house saying, "Hobbitses…me like Hobbitses."

 

 

The @(!#!&!) Pump House

Looks so charming...so completely doesn't work

Look at it. It looks so cute, so self-contained, so…efficient.

NOT!  Our spring is presently turned off.  (I'm not sure how they do that, maybe divert it someplace else.)  It's been off since February 26th.  The big tank in the background is our 5000 gallon water tank.   5000 gallons can go pretty far but not when every time the pump's backwash they dump all 5000 gallons of water down into the ditch.

So, yesterday I was working away on my computer when I heard gurgling in the laundry room.  I opened the washer and the gurgling got louder.  Uh-oh.  I dashed to the kitchen sink and turned on the water.  Nothing.  Nothing at all, when we'd had almost 3000 gallons before Ed left for work that day.

When I got to the pump house water was streaming out of the flush pipe.  Thank heavens for Al and Elana.  They brought over their big gas powered pump and before long we were up to almost 2000 gallons.  Even at that, I was afraid to use too much water…or maybe I was using that as an excuse to avoid having to take a shower.  Standing in that shower stall is like standing upright in a coffin.  Ugh.

So today Ed worked all day on the filters, timers and pumps.  He says things are almost functional now but we're now both completely clear that this is an unworkable system.

Aqueducts.  Gravity.  Ram pumps.  Anything is better than spending $300 a month for electricity to run a pump that is constantly draining 5000 gallons of water, over and over again.