Forget Birds. It should have been The Wasps.

This is part four in our wasp saga. Not for the faint of heart.

There's a round, metal lid in the corner of our back yard. I have no idea what was meant to go inside of there. It doesn't align with gas or water at all and doesn't have an embossed identifier on it. All we knew was that there were a couple of holes in it and in the dirt around it through which passed many dozens of dark wasps. We could see them swarming like diabolical blobs of evil ugly during the day, shamming innocence as they sipped nectar and grinned in a manner more creepy than a love child born of Agent Smith and Jack Nicholson a la The Shining. 

We've been discussing what we could do to get rid of this nest. One option was to flood the whole thing with ammonia. Another was to pay $81 and have a guy called Froggy out to do it. We considered waiting for first frost to kill the little nippers. My personal preference was to spray it down, get closer and spray into the holes pretty thoroughly, and then wait an hour or so before prying the lid off with a long stick.

Dave had another idea. It's a rainy night, he already has a migrain, his shoulder is as bad as ever since the cortisone shot has worn off, and he's feeling pretty jaded about what kind of pain tiny wee insects might cause. He figured he could just don a hoodie and long pants and go out while it's still raining and cold and just get the lid off in a trice. 

It was well after dark when he set out to get the job done. The two younger kids were already in bed and the two older kids couldn't hardly watch him advance up the hill through the light of the back porch. My job was to wait at the sliding screen door and open it when he got close and shut it as soon as he was safe. I shushed the kids' urgent questions and observations and watched in serious anxiety as Dave began to fumble with the lid.

He seemed to get some good leverage on it for a moment but suddenly jerked back like his thumb has encountered one of the nasty creatures. We all jerked back in unison but leaned forward again as he went in with grim resolve. He sort of casually flipped the lid open with a twist of his hand, peered into the hole briefly, and then sauntered down the hill toward the house.

I couldn't believe that he seemed so... well, nonchalant about the whole thing. You know, like the embodient of "meh." I opened the door wide for my hero and kept the eagle eye of withering skepticism on his jacket. He was inches from safety when I slammed the door in his face. "There's one on you!" I yelled. "Stay out there and get it off!" 

He looked down and said "where?" As he turned, I saw several wasps attached to him in an attitude of the kamikaze, throwing their whole bodies into the work of death. Their small frames were arched as they attempted to both sting and bite him through the thick cloth. He shook and flicked but they held on and that's when the swarm hit.

The whole of the light from the porch fixture was filled with angry, dark, silent wasps and I had shut him out, damning him to an insectoid purgatory. They flew at David, batting unsuspecting moths aside and plowing through the waning rain. I stared in horror through the thin screen door as Dave seemed to maintain his cool and wipe off wasps that had even gotten inside his hoodie. "Are they off? Are they off?" he asked repeatedly and I couldn't even say as many dozen of them sought the destroyer of their home. 

He ran to the side of the back deck and disappeared into the night. The swarm stayed put and I closed the glass door apparently just in time. As I continued to examine the wasps from the safety of my kitchen I saw that one of them had found a tear in the screen and was banging against the glass. 

I ran to the front door and flipped on the porch light. There was Dave, looking all over his hoodie and jeans for any hangers on and I looked with him, once again from behind a door. "Are they off?" he asked again.

I was afraid to answer. "I think so."

He carefully stepped inside, then suddenly ducked and started growling. He ran outside and batted at his head and turned his hoodie inside out. "My ear!" he yelled. "Why did it have to be the ear? That isn't going to help the migraine." 

I stood back from him and poked the hoodie with a fly swatter, turned over his hat, and continued to examine the whole of his clothing. Examination of his ear revealed a remarkably sizable crater. It actually looked like an attempted piercing from the back of his lobe. How the hateful little filth managed to get that far into the crevice behind his ear, I don't even want to know. 

We all went and looked at the swarm still raging in the back yard. If anything, they were flying thicker and faster than before. Some wasps had actually arranged themselves in the attitude of attacking the screen door in the manner of those that had adhered to the hoodie earlier. I opened the glass of the kitchen window where one wasp had taken his battle stance and tapped the screen with the fly swatter with growing force. It clung and didn't even shift until my blows began to rattle the window. 

The older two kids were in complete awe of the whole situation. I apologized to Dave for trapping him outside with the beasts but he praised my judgement and said it was a very good call. We laughed and wondered how people in "olden times" took care of such monstrosities. We marveled that Dave got off with only one bite. He asked me for a favor. Eyes wide and nearly tearful I answered: "s-sure." "Would you please start some bread dough for tomorrow?" Again we laughed. I made a double batch.

Next time, we pay the $81 with gratitude.

At this point he's going to wait until tomorrow before he goes out again to spray the nest, now that it's exposed, and we will pray that this is the last we hear from wasps for a very long time.

Something sad. Oh well.

I've long believed that as a Christian I should be careful in my stewardship of the earth. Regardless of your stance on global warming it makes sense to be conservative with resources if we want humankind to be sustainable.

Homemade cleaners seemed to fit the bill as far as honoring that stewardship. Vinegar and peroxide are certainly friendlier to both man and beast than bleach, and homemade products are far cheaper than their commercial counterparts. Asthma and fragrance sensitivities merely clinched my decision to break from the main stream and give natural a try.

What a bust. Maybe I just need to fiddle with the recipe a bit more or look into the science of how I can get a good cleaner out of these things without clogging sprayers, leaving streaks, or carefully monitoring and waiting for natural cleaners to remove mineral deposits.

Did you know that liquid plumber is by far more effective than any other means of clearing out a stubborn drain? And vinegar can't even touch the effectiveness of Lime Away. My Borax and vinegar solution doesn't cut through soap scum the way 409 does, and baking soda just doesn't leave things as bright as Comet powder.

At this point I just can't afford the fancy "green" cleaning products, especially as I wrestle the kids into cleaning in an effective but conservative manner.

Sigh. No wonder going green is this big elitist thing now. It's so expensive!

Granola bars

Have you seen the price of granola bars lately? My kids love them.

At Sam's you can get granola bars for 19 cents per 0.86 ounce Quaker Chewy bar. In my state we don't have a food tax. This is actually cheaper than buying in bulk on Amazon, even with free shipping factored in.

On the other hand, if you get this great price you're often stuck with those raisin bars that come in big variety packs that no one wants to eat. The kids might snack on them after all of the chocolate and PB ones get snarfed, but the poor raisin bars languish, unloved, until they expire or my husband takes pity on them and does his duty as the human garbage disposal.

I decided to try making my own granola bars.

A bit of a cost break down:

$0.40 -- 1/4 cup pb (Sam's)
$0.43 -- 1/3 cup honey (cannery)
$0.26 -- 1/4 cup butter (commissary)
$0.27 -- 1 1/2 cups oats (cannery)
$0.50 -- 1/2 cup chocolate chips (commissary, but also a price that can be found at Walmart during the holidays)

$1.86 for a batch of homemade granola bars. 1 batch is 17 ounces. That's about 11 cents per ounces, as opposed to 22.1 cents per ounces on the store stuff. Of course your price goes up if you use organic ingredients, but consider the price of a box of organic granola bars. I also like that the ingredients are pantry staples, so whipping them up is no big deal and keeps me from going to the store as often.

As my husband pointed out, deliciousness matters as well. They get a 5 out of 5 from me. These are denser than the commercial bars and stickier, but otherwise completely comparable and even superior.

Chopped and ready to go

Those are gallon sized bags. I really should have used three for the celery, but it would seem I'm too cheap. 

For dinner we had some of the lettuce and roasted asparagus along with steamed acorn squash (from BB before Thanksgiving -- still good), carrots from a Jamie Oliver recipe, and my mother in law's recipe for barbecue brisket. Yum!

Bountiful baskets

This is how much produce you can get for $30 through Bountiful Baskets. I also split a box of apples with another family, so I ended up with 19 pounds of pink lady apples for $11.25. Some of the less obvious items up there include Asian pears (as crisp as apples, as sweet as pears, and totally delicious), and the real quantity of celery and red bell peppers. The celery is really quite exceptional this time. It amounts to 4 bunches per basket and I always gets two baskets. I'll post later about what it looks like when you cut all of that celery up to freeze it for soup and stew.  :D There were 16 peppers, which is also quite unusual.

The tomatoes are going to make me a mondo batch of spaghetti sauce for the freezer, the asparagus is going to get roasted with olive oil, parmesan, salt and pepper, the peppers are getting chopped and frozen, and those two heads of green leaf lettuce and the radishes are getting made into salad. I'm going to try making the salad all at once so I don't forget the lettuce this time.

This food co-op is how I buy most of my produce. We still get a few things on the side, especially since we don't get potatoes very often. The main baskets are different every time but some frequent flyers are the green leaf lettuce, celery, some variety of apple, bananas, broccoli and some variety of tomatoes. I often buy one of the extra boxes of produce and we just go to town on what the season has to offer. The grapes were wonderful, I've still got a heap of Roma's in the freezer to use in sauces, the oranges were great for cold season, and it took us just a couple of weeks to go through about 20 pounds of cherries whether fresh or frozen, plain or in smoothies.  We don't end up with a whole lot of waste as long as I'm careful about preservation and keeping bulk items on the radar.

$30 (two baskets)
$11.25 (half a box of great apples)
$1.50 processing fee for the whole order.
=$42.75 for two weeks' of fresh produce

Also, the free workout since I went early and helped load the baskets. Slinging 50# bags of potatoes ain't work for no pansy.

2 minute brownie - aka, the most dangerous recipe in the world

Only click on the link below if you have willpower. Click it not for curiosity or for thrill seeking. Those who are ruled by sweet teeth or forbidden fruits must not enter the website which I shall shortly share. There is a whole world of instant indulgence where the innocent are laid bare before the awesome power of creative thinking in the kitchen, taking us to places and heights of lazy decadence from which many never return.

Who among our beloved children with the shining eyes could ever imagine the great calamity of hot, gooey brownies made from ingredients immediately at hand, using a common cooking device which divorces us from effort and the process of creation, and dirtying no more than two individual dishes? Not even Poe himself could have contrived such an awful state of lucid captivation by a diabolically seductive substance.

Click at your own risk. But one final warning, friend. Do not increase the lure of this recipe by getting (shudder) creative. Don't even contemplate the addition of peanut butter chips, toffee bits, chopped peanuts or (The Horror!) whipped cream with a drizzle of caramel sauce!

I do a disservice to the world by providing dangerous knowledge in a medium most likely to ensnare the unsuspecting. Go forth, and be strong.

Do Not Click This Link!


(mine took 2 mins of microwave time, which just goes to show you how evil this recipe is, making me wait a whole extra minute)

Cheesy veggies chowder

Inspired by this recipe: Cheesy Vegetable Chowder

Alas, I have no picture to share. This made a pretty sizable pot of soup but that last serving went into my belly for breakfast and I didn't even think to get out the camera.

Here's my take on it.

2 Tbsp butter
4 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1 large sweet onion
3-4 stalks of celery
1/2 pound shredded carrot
1 Tbsp ground coriander seed
1 tsp smoked paprika
3 tsp chicken bouillon
4 cups of water
about 1/4 cup flour
1/2 pound broccoli florets
1/4 pound frozen peas
4 ounces cream cheese
1 cup Mexican blend cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter in a pot. Add chicken, onion, carrots, and celery. Put lid on at an angle and allow to simmer until chicken is cooked through and veggies are tender. Add the coriander, paprika, bouillon, and water. Whisk in flour. Add in the broccoli and simmer another 10 mins. Add in cream cheese and cheese and stir until melted. Correct salt and pepper. Serve with home made bread.

Verdict: all of the kids ate at least one full helping, which around here gets 5 stars. It was a great way to use up the broccoli from a side dish and the carrots that have been languishing in my freezer, not to mention the last remnant of a block of cream cheese from the last time we got bagels and the last handful from a big bag of cheese. All of the little odds and ends of veggies went into the pot without complaint and it smelled wonderful.

Baby cabbages

Thanks to Bountiful Baskets, we enjoy a wonderful variety of fruits and veggies. There are some things that we tend to get frequently like lettuce and tomatoes (homemade salsa from fresh tomatoes??? Mmmmm, thank you) but then we get nice surprises like persimmons and fresh Brussels sprouts.

We used to eat Brussels sprouts frequently but I got tired of them blowing up in the microwave while steaming. Yesterday I took the fresh ones, removed some of the tougher leaves, split in half long ways, sprinkled with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and roasted cut side down on a jelly roll pan at 350° until they were toasty. Holy run on recipe! They were so very good and sweet and pungent. I should have done the same with sweet onion slices on the side.

We'll be eating more Brussels sprouts from now on. Especially since there are all these recipes involving bacon.... Yum!

Homemade cleaners

Asthma, allergies, and cost are all beasts of hurdles around here. My fragrance sensitivities cause me to make quite the production of buying even simple things like deodorant. I will go the the deodorant section, pick something out that looks promising and take a deep whiff through the nose. Then I wait. If I don't get a stuffed nose and an itchy face, I buy it. After that it's still a bit of a crap shoot.

Anyway, I've taken to making household cleaners because it's cheaper, there is no fragrance (at least once the vinegar dries) and the cost is mere pennies.

This is the glass cleaner we found yesterday once we ran out of the blue stuff.  And it works!  There's cornstarch in it which is totally counter intuitive but what can you do in the face of solid evidence that it works?

The bathroom cleaner we use is a mix of 1/4 cup vinegar, 1 T borax, and 1 T dish soap and fill the rest of the bottle with warm water. Swirl it around to help dissolve the borax. My dish soap happens to have bleach in it (Ajax, once again CHEAP) and I use the grapefruit scented variety. It seems to work pretty well, and of course it's ridiculously cheap.

Other homemade products I love include using normal baking soda as an exfoliant for the face. Wash your face with your normal soap. Sprinkle a bit of baking soda on a damp cloth, gently massage your skin with it (paying particular attention to the T-zone), and rinse. Finish with toner and lotion.

What are your favorite homemade solutions?

The New Samaritan

Luke 10: 25-37 describes the parable of The Good Samaritan.

This past Sunday I had the privilege of teaching a lesson called "Love Thy Neighbor As Thyself" and the first parable that came to mind was of The Good Samaritan. However, the young and those not well versed in the parable don't always understand the significance of the different players in this brief drama. So I printed out some appropriate clip art, dashed off a retelling, and it was a real hit.

Here is the text:

[post picture of a tourist]

A certain man went on a vacation to see Yellowstone Park. On his way from Denver through Wyoming he stopped at a picnic site to enjoy a thoughtfully packed and most frugal lunch. He was about to get underway again when a carjacker held him at gun point, took his keys, wallet, and phone, and spitefully kicked him in the ankle.

The tourist sat on the ground, his ankle swelling by the moment, and wondered what to do. After a period of time, a caravan of large vehicles pulled to a stop at that very picnic site. Within seconds the whole area was swarmed with college youths in matching t-shirts, a passel of men in black suits and sunglasses, sweaty camera operators, perfectly coiffed reporters, and a good looking, middle-aged incumbent senator with huge, white teeth.

[post picture of politician at lecturn]

The politician stumped for education, environment, economic reform, and immigration policy. He was just getting to the welfare system when he saw the stunned tourist and, sensing a photo opportunity, went to sit beside him. He shook his hand and asked for whom he'd vote in the coming election. Blinded by camera lights and white teeth, the tourist stuttered that he was from Colorado. The Wyoming senator said "that's too bad, son," and in a whirl everyone packed up and left the tourist sitting in the dust.

Not too long after that, a certain caped crusader [post batman symbol] came to a screeching halt in a flying-rodent-mobile.

"Citizen," he said with deep voice and chiseled jaw. "I'm responding to a certain signal that was spotted just south of Rexburg, Idaho. [the home of BYU-Idaho] Apparently some reckless youths got hyped up on Mountain Dew and are on a rampage through the city, cutting neckties and stealing left shoes. Can you tell me how to get to the I-15?"

The tourist responded that he only had directions for getting to Yellowstone, but good luck anyway. Away the super hero sped and, as in the tradition of sad tales, it began to rain.

The next person to pull up was a trucker named Billy-John. [post pic of Billy-John. Let's just say that I Googled "scary trucker clipart" and picked the most grotesque face out of the bunch]

His cattle truck was as unwashed as he was, and both made the same sort of windy noises. Billy-John silently looked over the tourist, taking in his swollen ankle, sad expression, and inexplicably and offensively bright button up shirt. The trucked spat an enormous geyser of tobacco juice on the ground and said in a drawl:

"Y'all need some hep 'ere?"

The tourist tried to hold back tears of relief and pain as Billy-John helped him into the filthy but dry cab of the cattle truck. They traveled into Casper where trucker helped tourist into an urgent care center, telling the front desk to mail him the bill. He also booked a room at a modest motel and gave his new friend his spare shirt and pair of pants. The tourist gratefully embraced his most unlikely savior and was forever grateful.