Rural Revolution

Wealth untold

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 19:38:47 +0000

This. This. This!

Here's a transcript of what the woman says:

"One of the greatest luxuries in life is being married to the handy guy. Not 'yacht or private jet' rich. I'm talking about a level of wealth that is way more realistic. The dryer starts making a weird noise, and your husband goes, 'Let me take a look at it.' That is wealth.

"Because you know what I do when something breaks? I immediately start calculating how much money it's gonna cost to fix it. My husband hears a strange noise and he gets excited. Excited like the appliance just challenged him to a dual. That man will spend $47 on parts, watch one YouTube video from a guy named Rick in Iowa, disappear into the garage for three hours, and somehow save us $1200. It's unbelievable.

"And handy husbands don't just fix things. They know things. Things that no normal person should know. This man knows the inner workings of every appliance, vehicle, outlet, pipe hinge, and mysterious thing in our house. The best part is the confidence, because I have never seen a handy husband look at a problem and think, 'Hmmm, maybe I should hire a professional.' No. He IS the professional.

"So marry the handy guy, because one day your house is gonna make a noise; and instead of panic, you'll hear the most comforting words a woman could hear: 'I know what's wrong.'"

Amen!!!! Preach it, sister!!!!

A garlic "Eureka"

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 19:10:07 +0000

When we lived in our last home, I spent years cultivating a beautiful German porcelain-neck variety of garlic. I routinely harvested cloves approaching eggs in size.

When we moved here to our current home in December of 2020, I brought several heads to plant in our future garden. For a variety of reasons (late in the season, no where proper to plant them, etc.), the garlic failed to thrive and my original line of garlic died out. Bummer.

The problem was, I couldn't remember what kind of garlic I had originally ordered so long ago. I do know the company was no longer in business. I ordered what I hoped was something similar online from a different company and was disappointed with the results. I mean sure, it was garlic, but it wasn't jumbo garlic, if you know what I mean. Still, last year's harvest was abundant (21 pounds) and I canned up a staggering 28 pints of chopped garlic. I put aside the largest cloves for replanting.... uh, wait a minute....

Jumbo garlic. That's the magic word I was looking for! I should have been looking for jumbo garlic to plant. (NOT elephant garlic. That's too mild for my taste.) So last fall, I ordered and planted one pound of jumbo garlic (which filled half a bed) and planted the remaining bed-and-a-half with the regular garlic I'd been growing.

Last week I harvested the garlic.

There was no question about the results. Eureka! I have my large cloves back!

It was pure joy to dig up these heads and see the size of the cloves.

It didn't take long to harvest both beds.

I ended up with two crates.

I set these near the back porch to cure for a couple of days.

Then I snipped off the stems.

Here's a better size comparison between the "regular" garlic and the jumbo stuff.

Once again, I have cloves approaching an egg in size. Woot!

I don't plan to mince and can this year's crop. I still have plenty of "jarlic" left over from last year. Instead, I'll store this and use it fresh, and probably give away a fair bit to friends and neighbors.

Oh, and just because I want a record of where I ordered this garlic, and what variety, here's photos of the invoice that came with it:

Right now the bowls of garlic are sitting on the kitchen table. Every time I catch a glimpse of those gigantic cloves, I grin.

Silly to be so thrilled over jumbo garlic, ain't it? I always knew I was weird.

Peach purée

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 04:37:30 +0000

Five years ago, we planted four peach trees.

Peaches are, hands down, my all-time favorite fruit, so I was anxious to get some trees established as early as possible here in our current home. We chose four different varieties that are resistant to peach curl.

Despite cages and fencing, it's been a battle against the deer, who want nothing more than to consume these poor little trees down to nubbins. As a result, they are misshapen and a few branches are dead from the times the deer won.

Despite that, these brave trees are producing fruit. Last year, I harvested about ten pounds. This year ... yowza. One tree in particular came into its own, and its branches were heavy with peaches.

It's the first time we've had anything akin to a decent crop, and I was giddy with delight.

A couple weeks ago, I went and cleaned out the one tree whose peaches were ready to pick. (The other trees, being different varieties, are lagging behind and will be ready to harvest in early September.)

I filled a 30-gallon tub about half-full of fruit just off this one tree.

Curious, I weighed them. Forty pounds. Forty. Pounds. Off one tree. Remember, last year I only got a combined harvest of ten pounds from all four trees.

The next step was to let them ripen. I put down a towel and spread the peaches out on the surface of the woodstove.

They didn't all fit, so I put overflow peaches on a couple of cookie sheets lined with dish towels.

I covered all the fruit with netting to keep the fruit flies off. That prevented a huge source of spoilage.

After a week, the peaches were ripe enough to process. I pulled aside a bowl of the best ones for fresh eating.

I decided to turn the rest into peach purée, since I still had plenty of sliced canned peaches in the pantry. I use peach purée a lot to flavor yogurt and ice cream.

The first step is to scald the peaches in hot water for a few minutes so the skins will slip easily. I completely forgot to get a photo of this step. By the time I remembered to document my progress, I was elbow-deep in the process. Cooling peaches on the left, debris (including small unripe peaches) on the right.

Since I was pureeing the bunch, I didn't bother trying to make tidy slices. I just gutted the peeled peaches and tossed them in a bowl.

As each batch got processed, I ran the peaches through the blender.

Then I poured the purée into gallon jugs. By this point it was late enough in the day that canning would interfere with our evening chores. After all that work, the volume was reduced to two full gallons of purée. I put these in the refrigerator overnight.

Here's the debris, ready to go into the compost tumbler.

The next morning, I assembled lids, rings, and clean jars.

Filling the jars.

Final tally: 18 pints.

In a tremendously exciting turn of events, my birthday water-bath canners held all 18 pints at once! How wonderful is that? Honestly, why did I wait so many decades to get these canners?

I set two timers, one for each pot, for 35 minutes. I only started the timers when the pots reached a rolling boil.

Out of the canner. This is plenty of purée to last the entire year. And I can't forget, I have three other peach trees still to harvest!

Making strawberry preserves

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 20:01:51 +0000

Don has slowly been painting the outside of our house, one side at a time. During the course of this project, we needed to move our chest freezer (located on the back porch out of direct sunlight) away from the wall so he could paint behind it.

This meant emptying the freezer of all its contents. This wasn't a bad thing, since it allowed us to sort, group, organize, inventory, and discard as needed.

Which is how I found myself with bags and bags and bags of sliced and frozen strawberries. For the last couple of years, any strawberries that I picked and which I didn't use immediately, I sliced and froze. Many of these bags had somehow migrated to the very bottom of the freezer. Time to do something with them.

I'm not a big fan of jams or jellies, so those are not my go-to options when it comes to putting up fruit. However the exception is strawberry preserves. These are easy to make, dense with strawberries, and require only three ingredients (strawberries, lemon juice, sugar).

This is actually a Martha Stewart recipe, one of the few recipes she has that isn't a logistical nightmare to follow. (You know the kind of Martha Stewart recipes I mean: "Fly to Madagascar and harvest three fresh vanilla bean pods. Hang them to dry for several weeks, then condition them for six months in closed boxes. Steep the pods in 35% ethanol for two weeks. Use one teaspoon of this vanilla extract to...")

Anyway, back to preserves. First step: Let all the bags of strawberries defrost overnight.

Then I drained all the juice with a colander.

I planned to cook down the strawberries in my water-bath pots (which are very large). First I needed to get the tare weight of the pot so I could determine the weight of the strawberries.

This is the pot, full of strawberries. Weight of the fruit: Eleven pounds.

According to the recipe, for every 2 lbs. of strawberries, I needed 3 1/2 teaspoons of lemon juice and 1 cup sugar.

Because I had 11 lbs. of strawberries, I had to do a little of the good ol' cross-multiply-and-divide technique to figure out how much lemon juice and sugar I needed.

(Side note: This is possibly THE single-most useful mathematical trick I remember from high school. I use it constantly.)

I added the lemon juice to the strawberries...

...then let the fruit cook over a low heat for about 40 minutes, stirring occasionally. This releases the juices.

Meanwhile I had the necessary amount of sugar pre-measured.

I poured in the sugar after the strawberries and lemon juice had been stewing for the requisite amount of time.

Stirring in the sugar.

At this point, the fruit mixture needs to come to a boil over medium heat. I used a thermometer to check the temperature. Notice the foam on top. This gets skimmed off after the strawberries reach the required temperature.

When the fruit reached 210F, I turned off the heat and let it cool down, a process that takes a couple of hours. When it was cool, I spooned the preserves into colanders over bowls to drain excess juice. (This keeps the preserves from being too runny.)

Filling the jars.

Into the water bath. The preserves are processed for 15 minutes at a rolling boil.

Final tally, four quarts and one pint.

The processed jars of fruit preserves were so pretty, I almost hated to move them out of the kitchen. After admiring them for a day or two, though, I finally labeled and dated them, and tucked them in the pantry.

Man I love canning.

Thirty-minute mozzarella

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 03:23:04 +0000

I wanted to make some pizza, but we were out of (bulk store-bought) mozzarella cheese. I'd been too busy to make regular mozzarella lately, so I decided to try something that was – supposedly – quick'n'easy: Thirty-minute mozzarella.

Even though this recipe appears in my extremely trusty copy of "Home Cheese Making," for some reason I was inclined to dismiss it as a gimmick. Cheese in half an hour? C'mon. Certainly I had never tried it before.

However, faced with a shortage of both time and mozzarella, I decided to give it a go.

I started with a gallon of milk over low heat. I always nest two pots, double-boiler style, to make a water jacket. This prevents the milk from scorching.

To the milk, I added a teaspoon and a half of citric acid dissolved in half a cup of cool water.

When the milk hit 90F, I added a quarter-teaspoon of rennet mixed with a quarter-cup of cool water.

When the milk hit about 101F, I turned off the heat and let the rennet do its thing. With this recipe, it only takes about five minutes for the curds and whey to separate.

See? Already it looks mozzarella-ish.

I scooped all the curds into a large bowl, and used the spoon to sorta press out the whey. I poured off the whey, pressed some more, poured off the whey, etc.

Then I put the curds into the microwave for one minute. I donned a latex kitchen glove (which the recipe book recommended) and used one hand to flip the curds around, draining off excess whey. The glove protects my skin from the heat of the mozzarella.

At this point I added a bit of cheese salt and, with my gloved hand, massaged it into the cheese.

I microwaved the cheese for thirty seconds, pressed it using my gloved hand, and drained off the whey. Then I repeated this step.

And you know what? It worked! The result was a nice warm ball of mozzarella cheese.

The last step is to add cold water to the bowl and place ice cubes in it to cool the cheese.

I was astonished how quick and easy this cheese was. Bonus point: It's great on homemade pizza.

I put the kitchen gloves into their own Ziploc baggie, clearly marked for food use. I know I'll be using them again.

In fact, I know what I'll be doing with a lot of my surplus milk from now on...

My toaster wants my email address

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 22:27:14 +0000

I stumbled across an essay entitled "My Toaster Wants my Email Address" written by a rather cynical 23-year-old named Lily-Rose Dawson who is just over smart technology.

Her growing dissatisfaction with this Brave New World culminated in an incident in which she was working as a camp counselor and had been sent to town in the camp's 15-seater van to pick up some supplies – which is how she found herself trying to pay for street parking in a "smart" world. Rather than a simple old-fashioned parking meter, things were far more complex:

"I stood in the rain scanning a QR code, which led to a website, which told me to download an app, which asked me to create an account, which wanted my email, my phone number, the van’s license plate, my card number, and permission to send me 'occasional offers.' To park. On a street. Which taxes already paid for. ... The app then charged me a 35-cent 'convenience fee,' which raises the question of what, exactly, was convenient, and for whom. Not for me. I checked."

Or her thoughts as paper menus fade from American restaurants: "What replaces it is a QR code taped to the table, leading to a PDF formatted for a screen the size of a drive-in movie, which I navigate by pinch-zooming across the appetizer section like an analyst studying spy photos of a missile site. Some of these menus want me to create an account first. To look at food. At some point a fully grown adult with a job title stood up in a meeting and said 'What if customers had to log in to discover that we serve mozzarella sticks,' and the room said yes, and that man was promoted, and I inherited the results. The experience lasted thirty seconds. A man handed me coffee. The coffee was coffee. But the survey wanted to know how the interaction made me FEEL, on a scale, with an optional comment box, and if I skip it the barista’s numbers apparently go down, because somebody decided a human being’s employment should hinge on whether strangers complete beverage homework."

I understand this young woman's vexation. Believe me, I really understand it. But if this new "smart" world is this frustrating for a 23-year-old, imagine how much worse it is for those of us approaching our Golden Years, who were around when phones were affixed to the wall and required rotary dialing.

All the "dumb" things we, and our parents, grew up with still worked decades later. Today's smart appliances only work for as long as the manufacturer supports the item's firmware. Once the company decides to move on to something smarter, what then?

Dawson notes: "Every one of those things has since been improved into something that needs my phone, an account, two-factor authentication, and a terms-of-service document longer than Deuteronomy, which I clicked 'agree' on without reading. ... And it's still spreading. There is a toaster on the market right now with WiFi and a companion app, meaning the machine that warms bread now has a login, which means the headline of this article is not a joke, it's a product category."

Don and I have been fighting tooth and nail against getting smart phones or any smart appliances or furnishings. And yet we know the clock is ticking. Someday we'll be unable to bank, shop, or (apparently) park without being connected.

Maybe that's why I'm enjoying my writing career so much. My fictional characters aren't interested in anything "smart," and my nonfiction subjects largely involve doing things the old-fashioned way.

Cheers to that ... as long as it lasts.

Freelance cattle

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 02:50:41 +0000

Yesterday evening, as I was picking blueberries, I kept hearing the mooing of range cattle.

This isn't really unusual. There's a family who lives about a mile away from us who raise beef cattle, and they have extensive property in the area. They rotate their cow/calf pairs year round. We hear cows all the time.

The reason the noise from the range cattle caught my ear last evening was because it was coming from the wrong direction, from down a steep hill where this family doesn't own property ... and the noise sounded like it was getting closer. "I wouldn't be surprised if some of their animals got out of the fences," I commented to Don as we leashed up Mr. Darcy for his evening walk. This, too, is nothing unusual. With as many cattle as this family raises (several hundred), a few are bound to get out once in a while. The neighborhood takes it in stride.

Fast forward to this afternoon. I glanced down the road and saw five cows and three very young calves grazing their way up the road. Oh great. Freelance cattle.

Normally this wouldn't be a big deal, except these animals were conspicuously not the same breed as those raised by the folks down the road from us.

We started checking in with neighbors, who reported (a) yes, the animals have been hanging around everyone's respective properties all day; (b) they do not belong to the family down the road; and (c) neighbors have been calling around, trying to find the owners, to no avail.

Immediately upon seeing the cows right below our house, Don and I sprang into action. Don went to close the lower driveway gate so the freelance cows wouldn't wander onto our property.

I called our own livestock in and secured them in the corral for the evening, since I didn't want to risk any fences being breached by our animals (notably our steer, who may not be as steered as we'd hoped when we castrated him as a calf; while he's never managed to impregnate anyone, he sure does act like a bull) in their eagerness to greet the newcomers.

Our actions were none too soon. The freelance animals lingered right in front of our driveway gate, cropping down the grasses. Had the gate been open, we would have had visitors.

From the corral, our own cows could see the freelance animals as they moved up the road. They were very interested, mooing and bellowing.

I noticed a brand on one of the cows. Don and I both looked up brands for this region and found absolutely nothing. Side observation: That is one massive cow.

Bottom line, no one has any clue where these animals belong.

We half expected to find the freelancers on our front lawn, since we have no gate blocking it off, but instead they diverted down a side road and disappeared from view down the hill in the same direction as I heard them coming up yesterday evening.

It was a very hot day, about 96F, and I'm guessing these animals have not had much to drink in the last 24 hours. I hope they find their way home.

Bonus photos of our animals in the corral. Here's Lucy:

Romeo:

And Maggie licking her yearling heifer Stormy:

Blackberry bonanza

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 22:52:27 +0000

I don't like blackberries. Let me amend that: I don't like blackberry bushes. The vines spread like crazy and can take over whole pastures or hillsides if not checked. The fruit, however, is fabulous.

A couple years ago, we had a summer of no fruit. The wild plums and blackberries, which normally glut the land in season, were categorically bare. It was weird.

Last summer, it's like the plants made up for lost time. While the blackberries were once again abundant, the plums were absolutely phenomenal. I'd never seen so many wild plums.

This year, while the plums are bearing well, it's nothing like what the blackberries are doing.

Every bush, vine, and branch is covered so thickly with infant fruit that the branches are already bending down.

A couple weeks ago, when blossoms were still on the vines, I could stand next to a bush and hear the hum of bees as they went from flower to flower.

As a result of all this diligent pollination, the young berries are coming in thick and fast.

I have no idea why the blackberries decided to explode this year, but I'm certain the wildlife will appreciate it once the fruit is ripe. And, well, a sample of the fruit might make its way into our kitchen as well.

Homemade ice cream

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 23:54:11 +0000

With hot summer days upon us, it's the perfect time for homemade ice cream, right?

Right. Before we could achieve this goal, however, we had been waiting for three things to happen. One, we needed to find an ice-cream maker. Our old thrift-store machine had broken, so we had been keeping an eye out at various thrift stores for a replacement. We were finally able to locate one (in a rather shocking pink color). This is a much larger machine than we're used to, with a generous six-quart capacity.

Pink or not, we weren't quibbling with the price of $10. New machines cost a lot more.

We found this machine back in May, and we kept it on the porch waiting for the second thing to happen: Milking Maggie. We found the ice-cream maker several weeks before little Lucy was born, so we needed to wait until we had the necessary milk and cream available.

And third, of course, we were waiting for hot weather. Who wants to eat ice cream when it's not hot out?

Finally all three things came together, and I decided to make ice cream.

I started with plain vanilla. This takes just a few ingredients: Milk, sugar, cream, vanilla, and a pinch of salt. (It also calls for half-and-half, but hey, that's just milk mixed with cream.)

I started by skimming some cream into a bowl.

Then I scalded some of the skimmed milk...

...after which I added the sugar and salt and stirred it until the sugar dissolved.

Mixing milk and cream to make half-and-half.

Adding vanilla.

The mixture (called a "base") should be chilled before putting it in the ice-cream canister. I poured it into a gallon mayo jug and put it in the fridge for half an hour or so.

After cooling, into the ridiculously tall canister it went, along with the paddle.

I had bought a bag of ice for the occasion, so I put the canister in the bucket of the ice-cream machine and layered the space between canister and bucket with ice and rock salt. I let the mixture churn for 40 minutes.

The ice-cream maker performed perfectly fine. The only thing it didn't do was make the base into ice cream. That's because I was too parsimonious with the ice and salt (I was trying to divvy up the ice so I could make another batch later). As a result, the "ice cream" came out of the canister in the same liquid form as when I put it in.

I've made ice cream many, many times in the past, and have never had the result this liquid-y before. To be fair, though, our previous ice-cream machines were much smaller than this one, so adding too little ice was simply a rookie mistake. Note to self: Add more ice and rock salt next time.

Not to be deterred, I poured the base into a bowl and put it in the freezer overnight. We tried it the next day when the ice cream was frozen, and it was fabulous.

However I wanted to make some peach ice cream (peaches are my favorite fruit), but hadn't gotten around to getting more ice yet. So ... I decided to make ice cream without the machine.

There are a number of ways to do this, so I opted for the freeze-and-stir method.

I repeated the process of skimming the cream...

...scalding the milk, mixing the half-and-half, etc.

However this time, to the same base recipe, I added some peach purée I had canned up a couple years ago.

A few days ago, Don helped out with a community ice-cream fundraising event and came home with a couple of empty gallon-sized ice-cream tubs. Originally he planned to use them for holding nuts, bolts, screws, etc., but then changed his mind and suggested they be used for homemade ice cream instead. However in the case of the peach ice cream, the base filled a tub almost to overflowing.

So I transferred the base to a larger bowl and covered it with one of those shower cap-style bowl covers.

I put the bowl in the freezer and set a kitchen timer. Once an hour, for four hours, I pulled out the base and stirred it up.

After that, I simply left it in the freezer overnight and throughout the next morning to let it freeze solid.

And you know what? It was delicious!

Maybe gourmands can tell the difference between churned and unchurned ice cream, but we couldn't. Conclusion: Don't let the lack of an ice-cream maker – or the lack of ice, in our case – deter you from making homemade ice cream.

That said, it's a very, very good thing the dairy ingredients were free since they came from our own cow. Purchasing the necessary amount of milk, half-and-half, heavy cream, or even the peaches to make purée would, unfortunately, make it far more economical to buy a gallon of commercial ice cream. Sadly, that's the reality of current food prices.

Here are the recipes I used, which came with the ice-cream maker. The recipes below make four quarts:

Vanilla Ice Cream
• 2 cups milk
• 1 3/4 cups sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups half-and-half
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 4 cups whipping cream

Scald the milk until bubbles form around the edges. Remove from heat. Stir in sugar and salt until dissolved. Stir in half-and-half, vanilla, and cream. Chill for 30 minutes before churning.

Peach Ice Cream
Same recipe as above, except add four cups of peach purée before freezing.

A little ray of sunshine

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 14:52:03 +0000

Some of you might remember the circumstances under which our pastor met and married his beautiful wife. (If not, see here and here and here and here.)

Don and I get to church early in order to help get certain things set up for the service. This is why, this past Sunday, we were inside the sanctuary when our pastor, his wife, and their toddler son arrived.

The moment – the moment! – this little boy came inside the church doors, he brought joy and smiles with him.

The boy (I'll call him "G") is like the church mascot. Everyone loves him. He knows everyone by name, he bestows hugs and affection freely, he giggles and laughs. He is a little ray of sunshine.

Don and I share a pew with Mrs. Pastor and G, in part so I can help corral the squirrely toddler while his daddy is conducting the service, but honestly it's not a hard task. This child is extraordinarily well behaved, thanks to both his innate sweet nature and his parents' proper discipline. It also helps that he has a selection of snacks and toys in the pew with him.

Mrs. Pastor is expecting their second son in October, and we're so happy for them. Some people are just wonderful parents, y'know? Soon they'll have two little rays of sunshine.

In the throes of harvesting blueberries

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 02:01:59 +0000

I am deep in the throes of harvesting blueberries.

These blueberry bushes have become a serious summer commitment. Last year, if you recall, we harvested upwards of 92.5 lbs. of fruit.

Whether this year's tally will exceed that remains to be seen, but certainly we have no shortage of unripe berries at the moment.

Not all the bushes ripen at the same time. They seem to ripen from left to right across the stand. At first (toward the end of June), just two or three bushes showed ripe fruit, with the rest of the berries remaining green and hard.

For the first few picks, I'd harvest maybe a pound or a pound and a half.

That was then. This is now. At this point, all the bushes are ripening heavily. I pick about every three days. This morning I spent four hours picking and came away with a total of seven pounds.

On days I pick, I start early (to try and beat the heat). I begin by putting up our old craft-booth umbrella as movable shade. This umbrella, which we've stored unused for decades, has proven to be worth its weight in gold since the blueberries have come into such heavy production. Not only is it easier to determine ripe from almost-ripe fruit under shady conditions, but clearly the shade ratchets up my comfort level while working in the bushes.

While picking for four hours at a stretch may seem tedious, I remind myself that there are any number of people who would be happy to spend a few hours in a blueberry patch.

This is what seven pounds of blueberries looks like.

I brought the newly picked berries into the house, where I'll let them sit for about three days at room temperature, which helps sweeten the fruit. Meanwhile, it was time to sort and clean the five pounds of berries I picked three days ago, which have been sitting on the kitchen table.

I sort berries on a dishtowel. It's helpful to fold the edge of the towel under once or twice to form a small barrier, which keeps berries from rolling off.

This is my little sorting station: Unsorted berries on the right, sorted berries in the middle, debris on the left.

There can be quite a difference in fruit size, depending on what variety the berries are.

This is what I'm sorting out: Blossom ends, stems, and unripe fruit. I also pull out any berries that are withered or overly squishy-ripe.

From the bowl with five pounds of berries, this is the resulting debris.

To date, I've harvested about 28 lbs. of blueberries. If we're on track to match last year's harvest, that means I'm not quite at the one-third mark. A blue blessing indeed.

My obsession with mayonnaise jugs

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 00:36:15 +0000

I was making one of my favorite summer recipes the other day (broccoli-onion salad) which calls for, among other things, a mayonnaise-based dressing. During this process, I emptied our current mayo jug and had to open another.

To back up, I buy mayonnaise in gallon jugs about once a year when I go into the city for bulk shopping. Don's a sandwich guy, so I've bought mayo like this for decades, usually from Chef's Store.

And I always buy Kraft brand. Not because I'm a Kraft fan – I'm not even remotely a fan of Kraft – but because I'm obsessed with the one-gallon plastic jugs the mayo comes in.

Decades ago, when I first bought mayo in a gallon jug, I remember being reluctant to discard the empty container because it was so sturdy and seemed so useful. Ah, I was a sweet summer child back then. I had no idea how ubiquitous these jugs would become in my future life.

Over the years I have saved every single mayo jug as the contents get used up, and every single empty jug gets pressed into service. Some of these jugs are upwards of 30 years old and are still as good as new.

With a newly emptied jug, first I soak it in warm water for half an hour or so (rotating it once in a while) so the label loosens. The label comes off easily after soaking.

After the label is removed, I give the jug (and its lid) a good scrubbing inside and out, and it's good to go.

Right now, since I'm in full dairy mode, these jugs hold milk and get cleaned frequently. Often I upend them on racks over a towel when I have a bunch to dry.

At one point many years ago, I had so many jugs filled with dry staples (whole wheat flour, oatmeal, raisins, brown sugar, tea, etc.) that my pantry was overcrowded with them. So about ten years ago, Don made me a custom shelving unit that holds 30 jugs (five across, two deep, three high), and I've used it ever since.

I have jugs of milk in the dairy fridge.

I have jugs in the pantry. I have jugs in the barn. I have jugs filled with emergency water. I have jugs in the freezer filled with coffee or other loose staples. I have jugs everywhere. If I have any empty jugs, I put them in the barn until they're needed. Almost invariably, they'll be needed within a matter of weeks.

I've never even tried to count how many jugs we have in circulation, but I'm guessing there are upwards of a hundred or so. I can think of only one jug that broke, and that was because it froze. I had filled it with water and it had been tipped over on its side during some bitterly cold weather. The water froze, and as the ice expanded, it broke the plastic siding. And that, literally, is just about the only jug I've ever lost.

And let me tell you, I beat the tar out of these things. But they take a lickin' and keep on tickin'. They're some of the toughest and most useful things imaginable ... and they have a handy carrying handle to boot.

So yeah, you might say I'm a wee bit obsessed with mayonnaise jugs.

Learning something new every day

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 23:55:33 +0000

Older Daughter described how she went out to her car the other day to drive to work. It was very early in the morning (maybe 5 am), and she was startled when something scurried away from her in the parking lot. She said it was about 2.5 inches long and looked like a large spider with huge front legs. She managed to snatch a photo.

I asked if it was a scorpion (this is before she sent the photo), and she said no. She said it was a camel spider.

"A camel spider!" I exclaimed. "I thought those were only found in the Middle East!"

It seems not. I looked it up, and by golly they're also found in North America, notably in drier and more desert-y areas.

And, unmistakably, it was a camel spider (also called a whip scorpion). These are arachnids, but not true spiders. Instead they belong to the order Solifugae, and there are many species spanning both the Old and the New Worlds.

Freaky-looking things, aren't they? However they're harmless to humans, can't climb or spin webs, and are beneficial to the ecosystem.

But yeah ... I never knew camel spiders were found in Idaho. Ya learn something new every day.

Milking: The daily schedule

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 02:03:04 +0000

Ever since Maggie's latest calf was born on June 18 (we named the calf Lucy, by the way), milking was a priority.

This goal was far, far easier than last year's rodeo, for two reasons: One, we already had the milking infrastructure in place (calf pen, milking stall, etc.). And two, Maggie is already trained to milk. Picking the morning routine back up was a piece o' cake compared to last year.

It was muscle memory for me as well. I haven't milked since February 26 (before Older Daughter and I went to Italy to visit Younger Daughter), so I had to remember the basic steps and not forget anything. In this respect, muscle memory played a large part.

So join me in my morning routine. This time of year, I'm in the barn sometime between 5 and 6 am.

This is the milking equipment I take out to the barn. On the left is the milk bucket into which I actually squirt the milk. In the center is the holding bucket, into which I routinely dump the fresh milk as I progress. (I'm a big fan of the two-bucket milking system. This way if Maggie kicks over the milk bucket, I haven't lost the entire morning's output.) Notice the black line marked on the center holding bucket; this delineates one gallon. On the right is just a small bowl which I put a towel and some warm water for washing Maggie's udder.

Here's the bowl with the towel and warm water.

I stack everything together and cover it with a plastic cap before going to the barn.

In the barn, I grab a scoop of grain to put in the feed bucket on the other side of the head gate. Maggie looks forward to this morning treat-slash-bribe. (Never underestimate the power of grain to convince a cow to do something.)

This is the layout of the calf pen and milking stall Don built last year. The main pen is where I sit on a crate to milk. This arrangement has worked superbly.

Maggie is now in the milking stall, eating her grain. On the right is the crate I sit on while milking.

The head gate has an arm that swings closed, which locks in place with a pin tied to a string. Maggie cannot pull her head out until I remove the pin and allow the arm to swing open.

Here's little Lucy, waiting for me to finish up so she can have her breakfast.

On the shelf in the main pen, I keep a bucket of sawdust (on the left) for the times Maggie urinates in the milking stall (it absorbs the liquid almost instantly), and the crate on which I sit. On top the crate is the leg-tie I use to secure one of Maggie's back legs.

I don't care how well-trained a cow is; it's imperative to tie the near leg to a post so she won't kick. Maggie doesn't kick from viciousness; she might kick if a fly is annoying her or if she's getting impatient. Regardless of the cause, I don't need a black eye from getting kicked by a cow. (Ask me how I know.)

Once Maggie is confined, I wash the udder and teats with the warm water. Most of the time her udder is fairly clean, but washing will also remove bits of straw, etc.

After this, I milk. For obvious reasons, it's hard to take photos as I milk, but it actually goes rather rapidly. I usually just milk out a gallon, no more, so there is plenty left over for the baby. Not counting the lead-up and clean-up afterward, the actual milking itself usually takes only fifteen minutes or less.

Interestingly, we had something of a glitch in the otherwise smooth milking season; namely, Maggie's yearling heifer calf Stormy. This young lady is half Angus and is actually slightly bigger than her mother at this point ... but she's still a baby at heart, and quickly learned Maggie has milk again. The thing about Jerseys is they're a soft touch when it comes to milk – we call them the Universal Donors – and they seldom turn away any bovine who wants access.

A couple of mornings in a row, Maggie had been draiued dry by this greedy girl, and I didn't want to take any milk for myself lest Lucy not get any. After some discussion, Don and I started closing Maggie into the barn by herself at night, and locking Stormy (and Romeo, our young steer) outside.

This makes for much easier milking in the morning since I can leave the milking stall gates open for extra elbow room and not be bothered by other animals. After I finish milking Maggie, I release Lucy.

I cover the milk and put it out of the way, then putter around the barn, cleaning up, while the calf gets her breakfast. This way she's not competing with Stormy.

I open the barn doors, and naturally Stormy dives for her mama.

I'm not too worried about Stormy's milk consumption. I suspect it's just a phase. Maggie is producing plenty at the moment, the calf is getting all she needs, and Maggie is getting plenty to eat. In fact, for the last two mornings, Stormy didn't go for the udder at all. I suspect her sudden interest in nursing might be a "regression" situation, similar to how a human toddler suddenly wants to breastfeed again when a new sibling is born. We'll see how this pans out.

When I've finished cleaning the barn...

...I open the gate to the pasture to release the animals, then I'm free to return to the house.

Back in the kitchen, I clean the milk bucket and the bowl with the udder cloth in it (the cloth goes in the laundry basket), and upend them to dry. Then I fit a small strainer over the gallon-sized jugs I use for holding the milk, line the strainer with a cloth, and pour the milk from the holding bucket through the cloth to strain the milk.

I cap the milk, date it, and store it in the dairy fridge (a dedicated beverage refrigerator) set at 35F.

Then I clean the holding bucket and upend it to dry with the others.

The last thing I do is put the straining cloth in some water and boil it to sterilize it.

This all sounds like it takes hours, but honestly from the time I leave the house to go to the barn to the time I finish straining the milk and cleaning the buckets is usually just half an hour or so.

So that's my morning routine.

"Stars and Stripes Forever" – wait until the end

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 21:50:37 +0000

When I was in high school, I had one semester in marching band (I would have had more, but I didn't like the music teacher). Because I played flute and piccolo, I learned to play the piccolo solo for the classic John Philip Sousa patriotic song "Stars and Stripes Forever."

That said, I haven't given much thought to this piece of music for decades. But just recently I saw a clip on YouTube and spontaneously clicked on it.

Watch until the very end! If you've ever played piccolo as I have, this blew me away.

Trust me, this will make you smile.

Fun photo

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 00:39:56 +0000

Younger Daughter now has a nice place to live in the West Coast city where she has her new job ... although it's practically barren of furniture, since everything is still being shipped from Italy and likely won't arrive until late August or early September.

Anyway, she's exploring her new community. Just today she was in her local branch library. She messaged me and wrote, "I'm at the library! Wanna see something you'll appreciate?" And here's what she sent:

My books are in the library!

I messaged Younger Daughter back and said, "You gonna tell 'em your mom wrote those?"

She replied: "I am NOT going to be the Daughter of the Amish Smut Writer again, thank you."

(Long story short, while Younger Daughter was in Italy, my authorship became known to many of her Navy cohorts, some of whom ordered a few of my books and thereafter christened me "The Amish Smut Writer." It's a title I bear proudly, though she was teased unmercifully.)

So yeah, a fun photo indeed.

Bambi in duplicate

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 14:19:48 +0000

Last year, if you remember, I lost an incredible photographic opportunity when I saw a beautiful bull elk drinking from a river and I didn't have my camera with me.

I'll admit, I've been obsessively watching this stretch of river ever since, just in case lightning struck twice. Well the other day, lightning struck twice, kinda. I saw two white-tail bucks standing in the river, drinking.

This time I did have my camera with me. However I was also driving, and since it is a narrow and windy road, I had to find a place to pull over and turn around. By the time I was able to get back to the spot where the bucks were, they had waded out of the water to the bank. Therefor the following photos are a little less dramatic than they might have been, but they had the compensating virtue that I was stationary, the animals weren't bothered by my presence, and I was able to snap away to my heart's content.

I'm guessing these young bucks are twins. After their first fawning, does produce twins thereafter.

Unfortunately the cluttered background made their antlers kinda blend in, but oh well.

I'm not the best photographer, so I don't feel I did justice to these handsome boys.

Still, it was like watching Bambi in duplicate.

I watched these bucks until they left the river bank and climbed back up the slope, then drove home.

And this, boys and girls, is why you should never leave your camera at home. After all, you never know what you might see.

Celebrating America's birthday in small-town USA

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 01:28:20 +0000

While America's capital is engaged in phenomenal spectacles and events to celebrate her 250th birthday, hundreds of millions of Americans are celebrating in small towns across this wide nation. We were privileged to be among them.

It's about a half-hour drive to the nearest town, and this modest place went all-out to celebrate Independence Day.

Every flag pole, every store front, every hand rail was adorned with flags and bunting.

As we walked the Main Street of the town, we saw benches set up for the convenience of those who would be watching the parade, due to start at 2 pm.

In other places, people had lined up picnic chairs in anticipation of the parade.

Patriotic signs where everywhere.

One store had put out a container of sidewalk chalk and invited kids to express themselves, which I thought was sweet.

We ducked into the local Veteran's Center where a three-piece band was belting out an outstanding version of "Johnny Be Good."

The city park was set up with booths selling everything from honey to crafts to books to soaps. It was a hot day, so the park was just a nice place for many people to hang around in the shade.

Lots of patriotic clothing.

By pure chance, we found a place to watch the parade in the shade with our pastor and his wife and toddler. People lined the street, waiting for the show to start.

Many kids carried bags, since a lot of the parade participants throw candy to the crowds.

Here's Mrs. Pastor and her toddler waiting for things to get started.

(By the way, Mrs. Pastor is expecting their second child, also a son, in October.)

Some kids waved flags.

The parade started, and somehow it just embodied the best of small-town America. Lots of cheering and applause for veterans, rodeo queens, classic cars, local businesses, emergency services (ambulances, fire, paramedics, etc.), tractors and other farm implements, and all the other components that help make a town function.

This being rural Idaho, there were lots of horses.

Many of the horses had glitter or sparkly stencils on their rumps.

The local Quilts of Valor exhibit.

And what's a parade without royalty?

A local gymnastics group showed up in full force. Every thirty seconds or so, at the sound of a whistle, they would all do a cartwheel. Honestly, by this point (we were near the end of the parade route), the girls looked pretty tired. That's a mile of cartwheels, after all.

Many times we didn't even know what certain vehicles represented. All we knew was they added to the chaotic fun and everyone was having a good time.

This is the local high school's extremely modest marching band. Despite their lack of numbers, they belted out tunes with great enthusiasm.

Nothing like a little death-metal garage band on a flatbed truck to showcase a variety of talent. Not my genre, but they were actually quite decent.

Let's not forget a salute to the people who feed this nation.

Or who harvest its timber for our building needs.

We saw a really cool series of flatbed trucks carrying various ordinary people. Are you ready for this? These were high school class reunions. This is the class of 2016 (10 yr reunion).

The class of 1996.

The class of 1986.

And – drum roll, please - the class of 1976, America's bicentennial. This float got a huge round of cheers as it passed.

What this day of festivities conspicuously lacked was some of the chaos taking place in larger urban areas, such as the teen takeovers plaguing various cities. Instead, it was just a lot of people gathering together to celebrate and have fun. Honestly, it was as fine a Fourth of July as we ever had.

Tonight Don and I plan to watch a livestream of the fireworks in Washington D.C., as well as some of the other celebrations such as the aircraft flyovers and the parade of tall sailing ships from all over the world.

Happy birthday, America!

Happy Birthday, America!

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 18:12:10 +0000

Back in 1976 – America's bicentennial – I was 13 years old and in 8th grade. I wasn't overly fond of my math teacher, but I will give her credit for something I've always remembered: She took us on a field trip to see the Bicentennial Freedom Train when it landed either in California's Bay Area or in Sacramento (I don't remember where we went). Any other folks out there remember this patriotic marvel?

Somewhere, too, I still possess a small bicentennial pin bearing this logo. Does it look familiar to anyone?

For more memories of 1976, here is a short documentary:

And, for good measure, a Coke commercial:

Now here we are, fifty years later, celebrating America's semiquincentennial

Presumably I won't be around for this nation's 300th anniversary, but I hope it will be a good one. Happy birthday, America!

Money troubles: Truth or fiction?

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 02:39:02 +0000

Recently, Daisy Luther ("The Organic Prepper") wrote a piece entitled "Seven Lies People with Money Problems Tell Themselves."

She distinguishes between those who are just in a rough patch (hey, it happens to everyone) and those who are perpetually in a downward financial spiral. It's the "downward spiral" people she's addressing. "These lies are very common, and they can keep you trapped in a bad situation for a very long time," she writes.

She lists the seven lies as follows:

• It's not my fault. ("Taking personal responsibility for your mistakes is the first step toward setting things right. Nearly every financial situation could have been different if a different series of decisions had been made.")
• It's just this once. ("Whether you’re buying something frivolous on your credit card, going out to dinner because you don’t feel like cooking, or take some other shortcut, it’s really never 'just this once.'")
• My children shouldn't know we're having money problems. ("You need to consider that living in a glowing perfect world where every bill payment is met with ease and budgets don’t seem to exist – things just magically work out – that’s a fairy tale. And if they grow up believing in that fairy tale, you are setting them up for a life of difficulty.")
• Paying off debt is always the most important thing. ("If you are in a bad situation financially, there are lots of things you should be paying before you exceed the minimum payment on your debts.")
• You have to have a credit card to get by in this world. ("It’s far from a necessity, especially if you have a debit card with the Mastercard or Visa logo on it.")
• I deserve a treat. ("This is one of the most dangerous financial lies out there. If you believe that budget be d*mned, you have had a bad day and you deserve that treat regardless, you’re treading into dangerous territory.")
• Money doesn't buy happiness. ("Money makes your life easier, more comfortable, and less stressful. And while that isn’t a recipe for joy, it sure does help make room in your life for seeking those things that make you truly happy.")

(Deeper explanations for each point can be found in the article.)

While Daisy makes exceptions for things that are out of one's control – such as catastrophic illness or injury – in other respects she puts financial hardship squarely in the laps of individuals. To be fair, it sounds like she knows what she's talking about. In her past, she's hit periods of economic rock-bottom, including losing her home to foreclosure, losing her car to repossession, and dumpster diving to feed her kids.

Daisy emphasizes changing one's mindset as an aid toward climbing out of the pit of economic instability. Certainly it's a tool in the toolbox.

But has she gone too far? Are those experiencing economic difficulties largely to blame themselves? What are your thoughts?

"Idaho destroyed today"

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 13:40:52 +0000

Over the weekend, Southern Idaho got slammed by severe storms that resulted in widespread flooding and associated damage. I did a quick search on YouTube for more information and saw a lot of dramatic footage.

The trouble with searching for anything on YouTube, however, is the algorithm then assumes you want to see more and more on that particular subject ... which is why I was so amused to see this ridiculous clickbait video pop up: "Idaho destroyed today!"

The video showed legitimate footage of the storm, so perhaps it's more accurate to say the featured image was clickbait. Ahem, notice the preponderance of palm trees and dramatic hurricane-level flooding in the image. In Idaho. The last time Idaho was hit by a hurricane was, well, never.

Ah, artificial intelligence.....

The season of white flowers

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Sat, 27 Jun 2026 17:23:00 +0000

We are having a bonanza of white flowers blooming lately.

At the moment, the most ubiquitous are the daisies. Honestly, these are some of my favorite flowers, so much so that I had them in my wedding bouquet.

This is dog fennel (Anthemis cotula). The flowers are similar to that of daisies, but they're smaller and the plant is stinkier (it's sometimes called "stinking chamomile"). Many years ago, my parents came to visit us, and my mother (who had a wonderful green thumb) was enchanted by the dog fennel and wanted to collects its seeds to plant at home. I warned her it would spread. She went home, looked it up, and agreed not to plant dog fennel.

Oceanspray. At our old place, it grew everywhere and was stunning when in bloom. Here we have far less, so every shrub is appreciated.

Elderberries. This particular (bush? tree?) is located on an embankment near the river. In the fall when the berries are ripe, the road-facing side is stripped bare and the river-facing side is left alone, because no one can reach the fruit.

Yarrow.

Mock orange (also called syringa), the state flower of Idaho.

White iris. We have a clump of these growing just inside our pasture fence.

Bind-weed, a type of wild morning glory.

The blackberries are in full bloom. I don't recall ever seeing this many full blossoms. We're going to be inundated with blackberries in late summer.

This is due in large part to the enormous number of bees and other pollinators busy at work.

And of course – though really, this is cheating – the seeds of dandelions. Hey, they're white.

With a few exceptions, there aren't a lot more flowers expected to bloom from here on out. Instead, the seeds and fruits are growing.

"Do we look poor?"

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 15:12:39 +0000

Recently something rather baffling happened: Don and I were at the receiving end of an act of charity.

A contractor came into the house to receive the final payment for a hefty home improvement project he had just completed. We had saved for this project for two years and therefore had the cash on hand to pay for it in full.

But without any prompting whatsoever, the contractor offered us a steep discount for the work he had done. We tried to argue that we could afford to pay for the project and were more than pleased with the final results, but he would have none of it and insisted on giving us the discount. After he left, we were baffled by (and grateful for) this act of generosity.

But the question arose, why was this discount offered in the first place? There was no need for it. We had the money for the project. "Do we look poor?" I asked Don rhetorically.

At this, he laughed. "Of course we look poor," he chuckled.

This actually startled me, because I don't think we do. Certainly I feel very, very rich. We have no debt, and live in a comfortable home with everything we need.

But then I looked around our house and tried to see it with a stranger's eyes. Nearly everything we own is either thrifted, inherited, or built by Don. The most noticeable "flex" is our books, 99% of which were purchased second-hand at library sales or used bookstores. When this person walked into the house, I had clothes drying on our indoor clothes racks and a cooking project in the works. There was no television in sight (we haven't owned one since about 1993), and the only visible electronics were our respective computers. The house was tidy and neat, without clutter.

In my eyes, our home is comfortable and inviting. I feel very, very rich. But to the contractor (who sees many houses), we must have looked like we were struggling financially, and felt prompted to offer the discount.

So, unexpectedly, we were left with more cash in hand than we anticipated at the conclusion of the project. To this end, we decided to ... well, never mind. The left hand shouldn't know what the right hand is doing.

Is this ... a mockingbird?

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 18:46:51 +0000

In my younger days living in California, I loved hearing mockingbirds. We left the Golden State in 1992 and moved first to Oregon and then later to Idaho, and I haven't heard a mockingbird in those decades since. Once, briefly, I heard one sing when I was down visiting my parents a few years ago in Southern California, but that's it. They simply don't live in (or rarely visit) Idaho.

Or so I thought. But for the last couple of days, we've had an unknown bird singing its absolute heart out, right in a pine tree off our deck. It's lovely to hear, but I couldn't see it.

This morning I was able to spot it and photograph it from below.

Sure looks like a mockingbird. Here's a photo from the Wikipedia page:

According to this website, mocking birds have a "transient" presence in this part of Idaho, with no breeding evidence. They are definitely more southern birds, hence why I always heard them in California. However, this website points out they are definitely native to Idaho, though far, far more frequent in the southern part of the state and certainly not breeding this far north.

Whether or not I've mis-identified this bird, I must stay it's absolutely delightful to listen to. I hope it stays.

UPDATE: I was unaware catbirds had such a wide repertoire of sounds. I listened to this video at the same time the "mockingbird" was singing right off our deck, and the calls matched. So yes, it appears to be a catbird rather than a mockingbird. Thank you to all who correctly identified it!

The bird who fell upstairs

noreply@blogger.com (Patrice Lewis) — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 14:31:42 +0000

Doubtless many of you are wondering how Lihn, our Quaker parrot, is doing since her rehoming last week.

In a nutshell, this parrot fell upstairs.

Seriously, the family (Lara, her husband and children) who took her in are nothing short of bird whisperers. Lara has a lot of experience rehabilitating parrots, some of whom have been abused, and said often she starts by simply leaving the bird in its cage for the first few weeks to get it used to its new surroundings and to understand there is no threat.

So I fully expected Lihn to spend several weeks in her cage, huddled and terrified. Wrong.

The very first morning she arrived at Lara's, Lihn was sitting on top her cage, sassing people, before flying down to the kitchen table to try and snitch a bit of granola from Lara's son's breakfast plate. She sent a video, from which Younger Daughter took a screenshot.

Lihn was due for a beak trimming. Normally Lara would take care of this herself, but since it was Lihn's first day in her new home, Lara opted to bring Lihn to the vet to have it done (so any "anger" for this indignity would be on the vet, not Lara, so early in their acquaintance). Lihn actually takes beak trims without a problem, so that was fine. On the way back home, Lihn was loose in Lara's car, and her daughter was scratching Lihn's head. (All photos are cropped to edit out faces.)

Younger Daughter says this is one of her favorite photos so far, since a bird must really trust someone to allow its head to be scratched.

Lihn has also been hanging around Lara's shoulder a lot, getting affection. Again, this is remarkable. Anytime we allowed Lihn on our shoulder, she would try to chew our earlobes off. But with Lara? She's an angel.

And again:

Back on the kitchen table, looking interested in another kid's oatmeal.

So yes, Lihn fell upstairs and is now living with a remarkable family. Younger Daughter and I couldn't be happier about it.