Don't forget the bacon

"... six fat legs, a cape for me, and don't forget the bacon!" Or so the story goes. In our case it was more like "... 20 lbs of turkey, sausage for stuffing, and don't forget the bacon!". Meat? Yah, we got that. When Elena and I picked up the pig (well, our half) we didn't get the bacon because they were still curing it for us. We purchased our Thanksgiving turkey from the same people who did the pig and they timed the bacon to be ready with the bird. The bird, tasty, pasture raised, never frozen, and responsible for two batches of stock and countless servings, was, alas, not a heritage bird. Thus, in our life and death conversations with Elena, the reasoning for killing and eating (other than TASTY) was pretty straightforward. Better dead quickly an in our bellies than dead of slowly crushing itself to death as the Broad Breasted White (incabable of many things, most notably natural reproduction or life much beyond a year) pushed close to its first birthday. With luck they will put down heritage birds next year, regardless it was one tasty bird. Now, what was I writing about? Oh yes, "don't forget the bacon!"

I worked, but Erin, Steve, and Elena went to get the turkey and the bacon. I got home about when they did and was greeted by a house that smelled like smoke. I found a tied trash bag on the counter that smelled like smoke and hefted like dead weight and asked "Erin, what's this" --- The BACON. Cedric cured it, and did a bang up job, smokey and salty -- no nitrates so saltier than "normal" we were warned, but several taste tests have proved the end product quite desirable -- and delivered the entire side to us, intact. Even in my quasi rural life, I had never seen a "side" of bacon to realize that it is really, literally, the SIDE of the pig. The size and heft of the time the Weigels brought home a placenta to use in their haunted house (which was always noteworthy and incredibly spooky, but that year was particularly memorable) but with a much more appealing consistency and aroma. In any case, it left no doubt -- unlike some of the more sliced and diced cuts -- that you are eating a hunk of an animal.

Erin whacked it into chunks to freeze, leaving one out to slice and fry as needed (next morning, and again several days later and, oh wow, that chunk is gone -- better get another one out) and that is the story of the bacon. Seen here in all its pre-slicing glory with a wine bottle for scale. Sorry sniff and taste tests are not available online. Take my word for it, get a side of a pig, have someone who knows how cure it, eat it repeatedly and give thanks!



The pigeon loft is essentially done and will make its debut shortly, as soon as I run out of meat to blog on!

You can't go home again

Last Wednesday night I flew back to the Netherlands. By Thursday morning I was on a train to Utrecht and had already cried in the bathroom at Schipol - the 'mind your step' voice echoing brought back too many fond memories of all the trips our family took in and out of that airport.

It was very difficult when I first arrived in Utrecht. It was like constantly over riding my autopilot. I wanted to walk down Marieplatts and into the Nieuwgracht house, plunk my stuff down and take a nap. But of course, this was not the case anymore. I instead took a bus to the hotel Ouwi, where Jake stayed during his first two trips to Utrecht and continued up to the university. I continued to get choked up, just seeing the bikes flit by, listening to dutch, hearing the church bells, remembering things from each place I passed. It was wonderful to see all my friends and colleagues at Utrecht. That evening I picked up my bike, stripped down and with a bum pedal, and Joao joined me for dinner. I collapsed into bed and fell asleep, as much from emotional as physical exhaustion. The next morning I woke up, and biked over to the Nieuwegracht house and the old way to Ukkie, where I stopped to drop off a letter and package of art work that I promised elena I would deliever. They were extremely surprised to see me and several of the children came charging toward me yelling 'Elena's momma! Elena? Elena!?' They looked at her photos and drawings and I told Laura and Sandra how Elena was doing. It was touching that she was so remembered, especially knowing how much Elena remembers and cares for all of them. I took a few photos for Elena and managed to get out without bursting into tears for the little cozy home that was elena's. Although I did realize that soon Elena would have outgrown Ukkie, anyway. Friday I meet with my Utrecht colleagues and had a wonderfully productive visit. Friday night my good friend Maurits invited me to his home in the country to join his wife, Menneke for dinner and meet his new baby, Selle. It was a real treat to spend the evening with them and Selle is an absolute doll!

Saturday morning, I had a long shopping list that Elena, Jake and I had compiled. Most important, of course, was to resupply on cheese. I arrived at the market via bus, rather than bike (having left her, bum pedal and all, at the building), to find Tony and family. They were hoping for Elena as well, of course, but appreciated the note, photos, and drawings Elena made them. Then I arrived at Holland Kaas Centrum to find a shocked Lonnike. She helped me pick out as much cheese as I could carry (remembering Elena's favorites!) even though she was a bit cross that I forgot to email her ahead of time so she could draw something for Elena herself. I took photos of Tony & Family and Lonnike to send back to Elena. Within no time my backpack was filled and the cheese was extremely heavy. So I returned to the hotel and emptied my bags. I planned to return to Centrum and take a lot of photos. I realized as I started our Utrecht photo book that I didn't have quite as many photos of 'everyday things' as I would like. So I decided this was my chance. I spent the rest of the morning and afternoon wandering to all of our usual spots, snapping photos and finishing up my shopping. Eventually I wound my way to the Niuewgracht house - seeing our ghosts all the while. Each ally reminded me of so many happy memories, I could almost feel Elena's hand in mine or the rumbling of zippy's wheels on the cobblestones. I'd filled up my camera card and was just lurking around the Nieuwgracht house, I think hoping that some how magically the key would appear in my pocket and my family would appear inside, when I noticed that over one of buzzers the last name of our friend from summer 2006 above the button. Shocked that she would still be there into the winter (we just missed Sharon by one day this summer) but also convinced that she wouldn't leave her name on a buzzer after she left, I hit the button....and Sharon's voice appeared. I'm not sure who was more shocked - but she buzzed me in and I ran up the stairs to the top apartment. We hugged and laughed in surprise. Andrea was with her, so I got to meet her. We caught up on all of our news and lives. I did cry because I was so wishing that Elena & Jake were there...I knew how much they would want to see Sharon, to be in the Nieuwgracht House again. We shared so many fond memories (well, the iced tea was fond - the summer heat was terrible!) They invited me for dinner. I dashed back to the hotel to empty the memory card and finish up my photos. Over stampot we decided to all go together to Amsterdam the next morning and visit the Van Gogh museum (the one museum that I really wanted to return to).

Sunday morning, I packed my very heavy bag (filled with, among other things, a double kick stand and bike rack for Jake, as they are impossible to find in the US) and carried my heavy bag of cheese with me to the train station. We stashed my luggage in a locker in Amsterdam and wandered off through the city. Andrea shared her favorite hidden courtyard in Amsterdam (it was beautiful) and we wanted the Van Gogh until our feet hurt and we required cappuchino to continue. Dinner was a tiny hole in the wall thai kitchen with AMAZING food that Sharon knew of. They helped me with my bag to the train to Leiden before they dashed off to the train to Utrecht. I was on my way to Noordwijk for a conference as the European Space Agency, where I've been for this week.

This trip back was so much like my trip to Santa Cruz in 2006 to defend my dissertation. Then, Utrecht was strange and stressful and didn't really feel like home. I was alone in Santa Cruz without Jake and Elena and I have a distinct memory of crying in the Trader Joe's parking lot because I missed them so much, and I wanted them there, but mostly I wanted Santa Cruz to be home again. Here, it was the same. Blacksburg doesn't quite feel like home, it's still new and stressful. We still talk about Utrecht like it is our home. Of course, Utrecht isn't our home anymore, and wandering the streets alone vividly illustrated that to me. As Jake said in an email to me this week,
"This is hard on all of us and I think that is just a reflection of how good, profound, and special our time there was."

Splinter and Knothead

Who, for those of you heathens who are not up on your cartoon trivia, are the niece and nephew of Woody Woodpecker. But also put on an appearance in our house this evening. We got home after our dusk bike ride, Elena was in a cheery mood but no sooner than we were in the door she started complaining that her finger hurt. 'Matthew hit me on my finger' I'm thinking "Sure he did, and it didn't hurt all day until we walked in the door at home. In the words of Bill Cosby "RIGHT"" So I offer up the usual offputs, 'You don't need ice' 'You don't need a bandaid' -- cursory looks showed no swelling and no blood, it couldn't have been *that* bad since there was no accident report. (this would be the part where Knothead is in full effect).

An hour later Elena is STILL complaining, so, aging fellow that I am, I run my glasses down the bridge of my nose and take a closer gander at her finger tip. Hmmm, a little red and angry looking, with what looks like a scab across it, but not quite. Drumroll please as Splinter enters stage right. OK. Elena is right, her finger hurts. Not because Matthew hit it, though tender as it is that probably smarted a bit, but because she has a splinter. We'll take it out. Tweezers? Check. Pin? In sewing kit. Sewing kit? In box waiting for shelves. Which box? Dunno. Follow 5 minutes of fruitless pin searching while keeping pots on stove with dinner from boiling over. Reasoning behind pin? I usually use a pocket knife to get my splinters out, but thought the knife blade might be a bit psychologically much for Elena. Well. No pin, so out came the Leatherman (later referred to as 'that scratchy thing'). A little scraping and slicing later ("Daddy! Don't cut off my whole finger" Daddy -- aka Knothead -- trying not to do just that as he bursts into laughter, cross eyed, with his glasses at the end of his nose. "Trust me, I'm a doctor") we had the splinter out, neosporin and a bandaid on. Post op patient and owy seen here:



Note entire finger still attached. Operation declared full success. Post op celebration with Sheperd's Pie.

Forget TV, it's all right here -- porcidal maniacs that chop 'em up and put them in the freezer and surgery on the fly, sans anesthetic.

Here pig pig pig

Yesterday Elena and I made the trek (the claim was 30 minutes, either I'm an extremely cautious driver, they know a faster route than I do, or they can't tell time because the trip was an hour) up to Weathertop Farms to get our half of a pig. It's all cut and frozen and, theoretically, fills about a banana box. Super. Life is easy, life is good. I haven't had a pork chop in 5 months, so I'm looking forward to this. Good thing. You buy at hanging weight and the slip had 110 lbs on it. We lost our half of the head etc., but probably netted at least 75 lbs of pork. Whew! I forget the breed of pig that they raise, but it's a heritage breed that "does well on pasture. They eat a lot of grass." No kidding, 220 lbs at 6 months of age is a LOT of grass.

Now, 6 months of age. That's right. They put down two rounds of pigs a year and kill every 6 months. Which means round two was just down on pasture and we got to go check them out. Allow me to preface this by pointing out, or reminding, that you can't do ANYTHING with a 3 year old without answering "why" a million times. So just exactly "why" were we going to get our pig? How did we get half a one? Well, turns out the pig is dead, and it gets dead by being killed. You can see where this is going. And oh yes, we don't have facilities to kill, process, and freeze our own pig and no, you can't just stick it live in the freezer and go from there. "Why?" Well, turns out that freezing to death is cruel. And so on, so we arrived at the farm with one very enlighted little girl churning over what kind of killing is (food animals) and isn't (people) OK and why this is so (Uhhhh, yes, do tell us Daddy... digging deep for that "because").

So off we tramp to go down and see the new little pigs. Who ran and hid



'They probaly think we'll put them in the freezer' --- Right on the money sweetheart:




Mmmmmmm. Chops.

Next question: "How do you kill the pigs?" Answer: " With a gun." Dinner table conversation later that evening? "What is a gun and why we don't touch them"

Knowing where your food comes from can be very enlightening for everyone. My take home message? Good thing I don't teach philosophy or religion, I'm not really good at explaining relatively arbitrary "morals" that are based, more or less, on deeply rooted biological wiring. "Why do cold fronts move?" "Why yes sweetie, come over here and look at this diagram..." I'm all over that one, but will probably be waiting a LONG time for it.

Weathertop is in a beautiful location and they also raise pastured rabbit so Elena and I checked out the latest crop of rabbits in their frames and I snapped a couple of shots of her out in the chill wind (42 degrees pre wind chill -- that's what Elena calls "brisky"!).



We haven't cracked into the pork yet, but the package of spare ribs is striking up a relationship with the bag of blackberries next to it in the freezer and I think that will turn out quite nicely.

Half a Birthday

I'm back. After almost exactly a year hiatus of blogging, I've been tempted back into the saddle by Erin's return to the "old country". With the main information channel incommunicado, it's up to those of us left behind to carry the load. Actually it's the construction of the first pigeon loft in over two years, with my able but vertically challenged assistant Elena, that provided the real impetus (I figured I had to come clean), but that is a story for another day.

Today, Nana calculated, was Elena's "half birthday". Being as Elena has recently been desirous of the coincident return of snow, Sinter Claus, Christmas, and her birthday, she wasn't going to let a "half birthday" slip by her. Particularly since there was the chance that half a birthday warranted half a cake.

It turns out that she was right, and Elena and Nana whipped up half a cake,



with a whole cake worth of frosting,



and we even managed to come up with 3.5 candles to lick.



The end result was one slightly older, and very happy camper!

Nana Version 3.0

About two months ago we learned that Elena's daycare was to be closed for 4 days the first week of November. The same week I was to be leaving for a return trip to Utrecht. We picked up the grandparent phone and Nana booked tickets to our rescue. So she arrived on Saturday and has been helping out ever since. Elena is pretty excited and makes my departure (so soon and to Utrecht) a little easier. She leave on Saturday.

We took her to a soccer game (we won 3-0) on Sunday. It was pretty 'brisky' as Elena likes to say.

Best Friends

There is a reason they are called best friends - because after years between seeing each other, it's like you never left. Jake wins parent of the year award for letting me fly out early to Denver GSA to spend two wonderful days with my best friend Jana. She took me hiking (ahhh, bliss we could go fast and climb steep slopes...elena barely makes it out of the parking lot these days!). The views were wonderful, and even better was that I was out there with a good friend.



Then we returned to Denver. This is where Jana's future hubbie (that's right, she's getting married!), Dan, lives. They took me out drinking the night before the meeting (in Jana's defense, she drove me at 8am to down town!).

Dan is a wonderful guy. It was really special to get to spend time hanging out with them. I'd post a picture, but I was learning to use my new camera and none do him justice (like he doesn't have a head in some of them.....)

The meeting went well, and I arrived home late on Halloween.