Veggie Tales - Part 2

I thought you would all enjoy seeing 6-week pictures of our little garden in action. Carter's corn occasionally gets beaten down by the rain, but seems to recover by the next day. The tomatoes are over 6-feet high and even our watermelon-on-a-stick (right there in the front) is thriving. Not sure what to do when it starts actually producing baby watermelons, but I'll figure something out. Maybe make a hammock for each one out of panty hose. Oh sorry, is the image too much for you there?

The sunflowers didn't make it. I had them growing behind the corn and tomatoes and I think they just got too much shade. Same problem with the sage. Our mutant tomatoes just shaded them out.

The boys aren't nearly as enamored by the whole farming concept as I am. Right after I took this picture, Griffin started stomping on the green bean plants at his feet. He was mad because he wanted to pull on the strings the beans are growing on instead of just holding onto the bamboo pole. (For the love of Pete, can you not just hold onto the pole for 10 seconds while I yell at you both to look at me and smile? Act like you are enjoying our garden.) Hopefully, the produce will eventually speak for itself...if I can save any of it from them, that is. If not, they are both destined for a life of squash. Punish them with meal after meal of slimy, revolting vegetables, yes indeed, that is my plan.

My Constant Companion

I'm pretty sure Peyton is going to walk before her brothers. She's VERY advanced. Probably because she is home all day with her mom and we have absolutely nothing else to do except to think up innovative ways to get ahead of the pack. We're outnumbered here, so if we don't coordinate our every activity, the boys blow us over with all of their energy.

Father's Day 2007

For those of you who have been wondering how Jeff's new face looks AND what Peyton looks like in a bikini...wonder no longer. You'll notice I am not posting a picture of myself in a bikini. You may all thank me later.

Sure we did a lot of other things for Father's Day besides go to the waterpark, but this was easily the most fun. We're actually going to try celebrating Father's Day again next Sunday to see if we improve on the day as a whole, because other than the trip to the waterpark, the rest of the day pretty much sucked. I can use that word, right? Wait. Why am I asking all of you? This is my blog. But we're all wet and happy here, so try to think of us this way always.

S is for Sucker.

This little beagle puppy followed Griffin and Cheryl (our friendly neighborhood babysitter) home from the park yesterday. For those of you who know me, I could probably end this post right now because you already have a sneaking suspicion as to how this story is going to end. But for those of you who don't...read on. She was very, very cute and tagless, which presented a problem. Our eager babysitter, who apparently is an expert on what people should do when a lost dog follows her to their home, took this picture. She was hyper (a statement that could be applied to either Cheryl or the dog) so it took an enormous amount of effort to corral her in order to get a glamour shot we could use for our ad campaign. Then I took Cheryl home, fed all three kids, loaded them all into the van, and started putting up "Found Dog" signs all over the neighborhood. I fully expected someone to call in immediately. In the meantime, I tried not to get too attached.

Alas, she spent the night in the kitchen. Jeff and I are both dog lovers, but it doesn't take even one brain cell between us to determine that this isn't the best time to be adding to the chaos underfoot by way of a needy puppy - although I will say, she is well on the road to being housebroken, which is more than I can say for some of the current members of our family. So this morning I called Animal Control. Six times. Three to schedule a pick-up, and three to cancel pick-ups. I just couldn't do it. I tried to focus on the word, "Humane", but once I started talking to the "Humane" folks, I decided it was a misnomer. Instead I took her to the vet who was infinitely more positive about the whole owning a dog experience. They scanned her for a microchip (none), gave her a flea treatment and a deworming pill, told me she was about 8-9 weeks old, purebred beagle, and was probably dumped by someone in our neighborhood hoping Melanie would find her. I do not need to be asked twice. I named her Roxy and told Jeff that the community at large had another 24-hours to claim their dog or there would officially be a 6th Freshour. This was his response, "Alright, sweetie. You're already emotionally invested. We'll have to get that fence up STAT." I believe he meant to say, "I'm already emotionally invested." but I let it pass.


So as I was trying to think of some incredibly witty way to end this post, which is basically an announcement for WE GOT A DOG! I got a phone call. Roxy is really Brownie (what kind of a dumb name for a dog is Brownie?) and she belongs to our neighbors. They are very happy to have her back. I was very sad to give her back. So sad, in fact, that I gave them a very hard time on the phone when they were trying to describe her and then a very stern lecture on how to care for beagles when they got here - which was way too fast for my taste. I was actually still on the phone with them as they were racing up to my door. But then when I realized Brownie really was theirs, I gave them the new puppy bag I had gotten from the vet. Because, clearly, they need some instruction. Now I am left with just a kitchen full of dead fleas. It is a dismal day in Melanieville. I would dwell on it, but someone has to make dinner.

Curried Couscous Salad

This post is mainly for my Mom and Joy, faithful readers of my little effort here, and fellow salad lovers. I hate to post a recipe so soon after Carter's creation, but this one is fantastic. I took it to a preschool graduation luncheon yesterday for about 100 people and folks LOVED it...mostly because the crowd was mostly vegetarian Indians and I think they were just delighted to see something on the table besides sweet and sour meatballs, but hey. Anything with curry in it cannot possibly be bad, right?

1 10 oz. box of instant couscous
1/2 c. sweetened dried cranberries
1 Tbsp. curry powder (one with fenugreek in it)
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar
1/2 orange, juiced
2-3 tsp. extra virgin olive oil
3-4 scallions, trimmed and thinly sliced on an angle
3 Tbsp. chopped fresh Italian parsley (don't be tempted to use the curly stuff - for anything...EVER)
1/2 lemon, juiced
3/4 c. pistachios
freshly ground pepper to taste

Stir the couscous, cranberries, curry powder, salt, and sugar together in a heatproof bowl. Bring water (amount will be listed on the package directions) to a boil and pour over the couscous. Add the orange juice. Give it a big stir. Cover the bowl tightly and let it stand until the water is absorbed and the couscous is tender, about 5 minutes.

Fluff up the couscous with a fork. Add the remaining ingredients. Stir until everything is evenly distributed throughout the couscous. Make up to 2-hours ahead of time and kept at room temperature until you are ready to serve.

The original recipe is Dave Lieberman's and called for walnuts, but I had to question the curry powder-walnut combination. Pistachios seemed more "Indian" to me and they worked wonderfully. Also, toast the curry powder in a dry fry pan first until fragrant or it will taste raw. That isn't in the original recipe either, but it's a critical element. I didn't toast it yesterday and no one seemed to notice...except me, but I really noticed.

I also brought Joy's Spinach-Orzo salad (rivaled my couscous as far as hits go) a Pesto Tortellini salad (which Jeff hates and I love), 8 lbs. of little smokies (gag), and 4 gallons of Strawberry-Limeade. All in all it was a full day of cooking, and cleaning, and cooking some more (dinner) and cleaning. AND IT WASN'T EVEN MY KIDS THAT WERE GRADUATING!

Cooking with Carter

Firstly, I cannot emphasize enough how important it is that before beginning this recipe you make sure anyone who could possibly interrupt you is otherwise engaged. In this case, my dad was at work, Griffin was sleeping, and my mom was upstairs putting Peyton down for her nap so I knew the coast was clear. You want to have both the time and freedom to let your creative juices flow. I generally find I am at my most inventive just after my mom has told me that I can have an apple and string cheese for a snack. How boring. This recipe I found to be both fun to make and delicious.

Milk Shake

1 c. whole milk
20 tsp. Strawberry Hershey’s Syrup
1 raisin
1 container of yogurt
Water (optional)

Directions: Get your sippy cup of milk out of the fridge. Remove top. Put more and more and more strawberry syrup in so that it can be extra sweet. I estimate that I put in about 20 teaspoons although I didn’t actually use a spoon, I just squirted it in. Stir it up with a straw. Then put in one raisin and two scoops of yogurt (I use Yo-Baby). The raisin is fun to watch sink to the bottom and the yogurt makes cool purple clumps. Lastly, add in a couple drops of water. I added in the water because I had it on hand. It was supposed to be part of my original snack. But water isn’t a snack, it’s a drink. Mix again with your straw. Enjoy with sliced apple and dried mango dipped into it.

An Important Message from the Circulation Department

Peyton Freshour would like to welcome her Great Grandma Burrell, her Great Uncle Brad, and her Great Aunt Sharon to Freshour Feat and Follies. And by "Great" we don't mean old, we mean Groovy. This is a momentous day for this blog as their combined readership has increased our current circulation by well over 50%!

Veggie Tales - Part 1

A few weeks ago, May 5th to be exact, I took Carter and Griffin outside and formally introduced them to Dirt. They had actually met Dirt before and had found him to be quite compelling. After all, he's able to do a lot of nifty things; fills dump trucks, lets them drive right over him, mixed with water makes MUD. In their minds he pretty much had already cornered the market on stuff to do outdoors. But this time I had much higher aspirations for Dirt.

Earlier in the week, Jeff had painstakingly tilled 400lbs of compost, 10lbs of lime, and a bucket of fertilizer into our 200 square foot plot of rocky, North Carolina clay. What a guy. I should really dedicate an entire post to his good naturedness, especially when it comes to his industrious wife and our little piece of the earth. A couple more years and he will have tilled every square inch of it. And then I fear we'll be forced to move because we simply won't be able to dig out from under all the toys anymore. But I digress. I hoed it into rows -which one might think is unnecessary and ridiculously Type A of me, but when you have two small, eager children gardening with you, it is of paramount importance that you delineate the working Dirt from the roads, so to speak.

Then I got Carter out there with the biggest seeds I could find...sweet corn.

You can see that he was very serious about his work. This because he likes Dirt and Corn and the thought that Dirt could help make Corn grow was, well, not nearly as interesting as his mother thought it should be, but at least I wasn't on my knees planting that particular row. We planted corn, sunflowers, tomatoes, peppers, cantaloupe and watermelon - the commonality being plants that get to be HUGE...theoretically. It's mandatory that the produce in your first gardening experience be inspiring, especially when your mom is going to make you spend a LOT of time watering and weeding. But you can see from the picture that even with all of our amendments, Dirt is still quite pitiful, so I had little hope that anything would sprout.

But two short weeks later Dirt came through...

Carter's CORN is actually GROWING! And in a bonafide row, which is equally amazing!

And so are Griffin's cantaloupe plants, but it's still kind of touch and go with them. Perhaps he mangled them with that little spade.

Stay posted for more Dirty summer miracles to come...

Where has the time gone?

Dear Mark,

We have a very little shamba this year in the backyard that frequently requires watering so that our baby plants don’t just fry in the heat of the South. Jeff and I are all about keeping the sweet corn happy. The kids on the other hand, are just not grasping the plight of the heirloom tomatoes. So the other night we were all outside in our overalls pretending to be farmers…alright, we weren’t truly wearing overalls because it is way too hot for that over here, but I would if I could because I think it adds tremendously to the whole agricultural experience.
Predictably, Carter and Griffin got a little bored and started rolling down the very short, but very steep slope in our backyard. They were giggling with sheer delight over the super cool discovery they had made right in their own backyard and, amazingly, kept up the rolling for a solid 20 minutes…which is a really, really long time for a 2-year old and 4-year old to do anything, much less together and happily. As Jeff and I watched them, I couldn’t help but remember a very long, very steep slope in Kijabe in which I, your caring, compassionate sister, used to delight in pushing YOU down…repeatedly, over, and over, and over again for hours. Okay, it probably wasn’t hours, but considering how many times you climbed up the hill for more, it felt like it. I admired your perseverance then (partly because it kept me occupied and laughing many a boring afternoon, but also because it felt like fitting payback after having cars slammed repeatedly into my bedroom door at the crack of dawn on Saturday mornings), as well as your ridiculously good sense of humor about it - two wonderful character traits you have managed to retain throughout this; your three decade anniversary. I feel a little responsible for helping to plant the seeds of those good things in your life, but can’t help but notice you have never bothered to thank me appropriately. No doubt a lovely note will be in the mail tomorrow, right?

Happy Birthday, my dedicated, funny, long-suffering brother. Words cannot truly express how proud I am of you,

The sister who started it all,

Melanie

The Start of Something BIG

Tonight we had the Mbuthias, and Kiboi Njaga over for dinner. We had chicken and broccoli casserole, cantaloupe, watermelon, banana-blueberry bread, and cherry cobbler for dessert. As a matter of fact, it was delicious, thanks for wondering. We're in continuing talks with them about attempting to set up a NPO here in the U.S. in order to build an orphanage in Embu, Kenya. We've had several other meetings prior to this (with a few other mildly interested parties) and, generally speaking, I've come out of them feeling pretty frustrated - like we've just spent a very pleasant evening talking in circles, since none of us is really an expert in this sort of thing. But tonight we geniunely made progress. Not only did we decide on a Board of Directors, we actually came up with...drum roll please...a NAME. A name that strangely hasn't been taken by anyone else (please dear GOD that let statement be true when we try to register it next week). Now we just have to come up with some bylaws, register them, write up a mission statement, agree on that, convince a LOT of people to give us a LOT of their money, find a reputable builder in third world country, and about a zillion other things...but tonight, I am choosing to be delirious about coming up with a name, because for me this seems like the start of something BIG, immense really, that is going to change the lives of a few children forever.

So you want to know what the name is? The African Children's Project. Someday, you may find us at http://www.africanchildrensproject.org/, but whatever you do, don't go there tonight, or tomorrow night because you will be sorely disappointed

The Freshour Family Board Room. Where BIG things happen...and we eat dinner.

Carter vs. The Chair

So this morning, mere fragments of a minute after Jeff had driven out of the driveway, I heard a positively blood-curdling scream from the kitchen where Carter and Griffin were eating breakfast. I grabbed Peyton and flew down the stairs expecting the worst. I've heard a LOT of screams of pain in my short career as a parent, but this was somehow different. A sobbing Carter was standing in the middle of the kitchen with blood pouring down his face. The entire left side of his head was completely covered with blood and his pajamas were soaked as well. Apparently, and this information was incredibly difficult to ascertain because Carter was crying so hard I had to rely on 2-year old Griffin's telling of the tale, he had walked around the side of our round table to get his booster (as he does every morning so he can watch Curious George as he dines), and slipped. His head hit one of the "ladders" as Griffin calls it, of a kitchen chair in his path and the edge of the square rung cut his head just above his left eyebrow. When I discovered the source of the gushing, it was painfully obvious that the length and depth of the gash was far greater than the strength of the two butterfly bandages in my first aid kit were going to be able to handle, so I packed all three kids in the car and headed off to the emergency room...at 7:14am. Jeff, who had just arrived at work, turned around and came to the hospital to be with Carter (as suggested by the hospital staff when they realized what they were up against) while Griffin, Peyton and I prowled the ER lobby for an hour and a half. Carter now has 7 stitches on his head, as well as a mask, gloves, a coloring book about nurses, and crayons - all of which he thinks are a lot more interesting than the stitches.

Counting for Jesus

I should begin by saying that Jeff normally puts the boys to bed each night. But early last night Griffin was slowly starting to melt down and I was the one that threw in the towel on the incessant whining first. After getting him ready for bed, I decided to rock him for a few minutes to see if we could at least end his tulmultuous evening on a calm note. We sang a few songs together and then I whispered a prayer in his ear - basically begging our Lord and Savior for a moment of peace. He was unusually quiet after I finished, so I asked him if he wanted to talk to Jesus. He nodded his little head yes. I waited wondering if I should help him out with one he could repeat after me, but then he began. "1-2-3," he whispered slowly, "4-5-6-7-8-9-10. I love Jesus, I love Jesus." He looked at me proudly, clearly finished with his prayer. "Griffin," I said, "were you counting for Jesus?" "Yes." He said happily.

Counting is Griffin's newest skill and thus far the most difficult one he has mastered at the ripe old age of 2. In counting, he had given his absolute best to Jesus. No doubt in that precious moment God felt far more glorified than when I struggle to come up with the perfect words in just exactly the right order that will turn the tide in my direction. Really, I would be better off assessing my heart and giving God my absolute best followed by an "I love Jesus, I love Jesus."