The following was mostly written on Friday the 22nd.

I’ve been feeling busy. My days are filled with homeschooling and overseeing of the kids’ chores, as well as cooking and my own chores, plus there’s the garden to tend to (I’ve neglected it since we planted it and the weeds are starting to show their ornery little heads) and church meetings to attend. And now the big chicken slaughtering day is almost upon us…

Unceasingly, I crave breaks. And driving to town for a church meeting and groceries does not meet my need. I want time away from everyone; time when I am responsible for no one. I’m getting crabby; I must put myself on time-out.

So I did! We all cleaned up the house after supper tonight and then Mr. Handsome took the royal scepter out of my hand and I grabbed my laptop and fled to my chambers. I have a whole half hour, and it feels fine.

If my Aunt Valerie were reading this she would most likely snort and roll her eyes. If she could muster up the energy for extra loud nasal exhalations and optical gymnastics, let alone a couple free minutes to read this post. So I doubt she’s doing either.

Her son is getting married next weekend so last week (to be clear, my phone call took place fourteen days pre-wedding) I called her up to see how she was doing. The fact is, I was curious as to how far under she was. Also, I was kind of hoping that her pre-wedding tizzy might serve to jumpstart me into action.

Valerie cheerfully answered the phone and we chatted about the soon-to-be-joined-together-in-a-state-of-perpetual-bliss couple (ha!) and then I asked her how she was doing.

“Oh, well. Let’s see,” she said breezily. “I’m spending a lot of time in the sewing room. I have four more bridesmaid’s dresses to make, but one I can’t make until the Thursday before the wedding because I don’t have her measurements. And I have to make seven ties, as well as pants for my boys” — she has four boys, so I’m not sure how many she was referring to — “and I need to make myself a dress because the first one I made didn’t turn out.”

She sucked in a big breath of air and continued her spiel, the words rushing out on the exhale like it was the words themselves sucking the air right out of her. “And then I’m in charge of the rehearsal dinner so I’m making food for that, and I need to make twenty pies for the wedding, and tomorrow is my shopping day and I need to buy a suit for my husband. And I think that’s about it.”

Oh. Um. Right.

“It will all get done,” she assured me. I think she was a little worried, afraid that I had maybe gone into shock or something. “I have it mapped out, so it feels manageable. I’ll be fine.”

I gulped. “You probably haven’t even gotten a chance to get your garden in…”

“No, I got the early stuff in already, but it’s all weedy now. It will just have to wait.”

I guess so.

Gaining new perspectives can be so refreshing … or deeply disturbing. Take your pick.

In honor of Aunt Valerie, I’m posting her blueberry bar recipe. If I lived any closer, I would make her a pan of these bars and take them over to her. I imagine that I might have to pry her clenched hands from the sewing machine and pluck the pins from her puckered lips, but that would be okay. I would fix her a cup of coffee, prop her feet up on a chair, and then say gently, as though to a person possessed, “Eat.”

After the first bite, her shoulders would relax and she would smile. But, as soon as she popped the last bite of blueberry bar into her mouth, her eyes would glaze over, and she would absentmindedly set her coffee cup down and swivel around to face the sewing machine, the Force of Productivity once again taking over.

And I would pick-up the coffee cup and empty plate and tip-toe out, satisfied that she had at least had a few minutes of reprieve.

Aunt Valerie’s Blueberry Bars

These are no-nonsense bars, nourishing and tasty. They are delicious for breakfast with a glass of milk, or for an afternoon snack with a cup of coffee. You could, of course, dress them up with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream for a dessert, but I prefer to keep them in the realm of hearty snacks and breakfast food.

Do not feel at all limited by the word “blueberry” in the title. These bars can be made with almost any fruit filling. My mother has made them with black raspberry filling and apricot filling, and this last time I used a pint of my rhubarb jam. (My mother and I both agree that the darker fruits seem to have the most flavor and visual appeal.)

These bars keep well. I store them, uncovered even, in my jelly cupboard. They make excellent gifts, cut into squares and places in a pretty wax paper-lined tin.

Notes:
*This recipe calls for an unusual size pan, a 7 x 11. If you do not have that size, you may want to double the recipe and use two pans, a 9 x 13 and an 8 x 8.

*Therm Flo is just like cornstarch except that recipes using Therm Flo do not get watery like foods that are prepared with cornstarch. I buy my Therm Flo at a bulk food grocery in Pennsylvania, but you could also order it here.

*Oddly enough, the recipe calls for 1 ½ eggs. I usually beat two eggs together and then pour off a little of the mixture. Or, you could use one whole egg and another egg yolk, or just two small eggs. You’ll figure it out.

*You can make your own oat flour by whirling some oats in the blender. You’ll need to blend a heaping half cup of oats to get the called-for half-cup of oat flour.

½ cup butter
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup white sugar
1 ½ eggs
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup oat flour
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon soda
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
2-3 cups fruit filling (recipes and suggestions to follow)

For the dough:
Cream together the butter and sugars. Add the egg and beat some more. Add the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. (At this point, you may chill the dough if you need to take a break or want it to lose some of its stickiness.)

For the blueberry filling:
3 cups blueberries (if frozen, thaw them first)
½ tablespoon lemon juice
pinch of salt
½ cup sugar
3 tablespoons Therm Flo (or 3 rounded tablespoons of cornstarch)

In a small bowl combine the sugar and Therm Flo. (Stirring the Therm Flo into the sugar helps to prevent lumps from forming.)

Place the blueberries, lemon juice, and salt in a saucepan. Add the sugar to the blueberries and bring the mixture to a boil, keeping a close eye on it, stirring frequently. As it gets hot, you’ll need to stir it constantly. Once the sauce is thick and bubbly, remove it from the heat.

To assemble the bars:
Divide the dough in two sections, one section being a little bigger than the other. Grease a 7 x 11 pan. Using your fingers, press the larger portion of dough into the bottom of the pan. The dough should be level all the way around—do not push the dough up the sides of the pan.

Spread the fruit filling evenly over the dough and all the way to the edges.

Place the second, smaller piece of dough on a sheet of floured wax paper. Dust the top of the dough with more flour before laying a second piece of wax paper on top. Roll the dough out so that it is the dimensions of your pan (check to see if it is the right size by setting your pan on top of the rolled dough). Peel off the top layer of wax paper to loosen it and gently set it back down on the dough. Flip over the whole wax paper sandwich and peel off the bottom-now-top sheet of wax paper and discard it. Slip your hand under the bottom piece of wax paper and flip it over onto the pan of fruit-covered dough. Remove the wax paper. Tuck in any uneven bits of dough.

When you are finished you should see three layers through the side of the glass pan: dough, fruit, dough. It should be pretty and make you feel proud.

Bake the bars in a 350 degree oven for 30 to 40 minutes.

It’s salad season and lettuce is snuckered into nearly every meal, at least at our house, so I want to get this recipe for Ranch dressing out to you quick, before it’s too late.

My family loves Ranch dressing. They tolerate my homemade dressings, but they adore Ranch. Seeing as they are thrilled when we have chef salads (and Ranch dressing) for dinner (you ought to see Sweetsie shovel the greens down her gullet—she could win competitions), I don’t make an issue of buying the plastic bottles of premade stuff. I would’ve preferred to make my own but figured that Ranch was like Oreos: unduplicable (made-up-word alert).

All that changed the other week when I was talking on the phone with my friend Amber and she nonchalantly said that she started making her own Ranch dressing when she came across a recipe for it over at Pioneer Woman’s blog. Amber had never really like salads (gasp) and she didn’t even like bought Ranch dressing all that much (double gasp), but she took a shine to this homemade Ranch dressing. I promptly looked the recipe up and made it. Everyone loved it, and I beamed with pleasure as they pitch-forked the mounds of greens into their mouths and Miss Becca Boo declared, “I love when you make chef salads, Mama.” Sweet words, no?

The next time I made it, just a couple days ago, I made a double batch. I had even saved an old Ranch bottle so I could fill it with the homemade dressing.

Which proved to be a lot more difficult than it sounds. I was talking on the phone to my mom while I attempted to fill the bottle and the poor woman endured an exhaustively detailed description of what I was doing. I was already grumpy, and the dressing-into-bottle dilemma only served to amp up the Grump Factor. My funnels were either too big, or too small, and pouring it in directly was disastrous, so I was reduced to sloppily teaspooning it into the bottle. Very grumpily. And then I wondered (out loud, of course, to Mom) if I could make a paper funnel, and then it hit me—my cake decorator bag! I fitted the bag (minus any attachments) into the neck of the bottle and poured. It was so painless that it almost made me happy.

Now that the mess is cleaned up and I have a large bottle of homemade Ranch dressing in my refrigerator, along with a little bottle of the extra, I am very happy indeed. I am not grumpy any more. (That probably has more to do with the fact that my kids are quietly playing and I’m getting some precious writing time, but we’ll ignore that for the sake of this post topic and say it is the bottle of Ranch dressing that has lifted my spirits, okay?)

Ranch Dressing
Adapted from Ree’s blog, Pioneer Woman.

Amber said that she subbed yogurt for the sour cream and it turned out delicious.

Ree calls for fresh herbs, of which I only had parsley. I’ve written the recipe down as I made it, with the fresh herb options in parenthesis.

Some other optional ingredients (according to Ree—I didn’t try them) include white vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, cayenne pepper, paprika, fresh oregano, and Tabasco sauce. Another recipe I looked at called for fresh basil and red pepper flakes. There’s plenty of room for creativity.

I’m giving you the doubled recipe; halve it if you doubt me.

2 cups mayonnaise
1 cup sour cream
1 cup buttermilk, well-shaken
½ cup fresh parsley, chopped fine
2 smallish cloves garlic, minced fine
2 tablespoons chives, dried (1/4 cup fresh, minced)
1 teaspoon dill weed, dried (2-4 teaspoons fresh, minced)
1/4 teaspoon salt
a couple grinds of black pepper

Mix all the ingredients together. Store the dressing in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

I never said anything more about our chickens ever since I informed you that we got them, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. They first lived in the trailer-wagon house that Mr. Handsome rigged up for them because his chicken tractor wasn’t quite ready. A lot of them died while still in the trailer-wagon, which was to be expected since these chickens were the leftovers from the neighbor’s Big Chicken House Cleaning—they were not cream of the crop stock.

My kids, especially Miss Becca Boo, loved the chickies, checking on them all the time, feeding them, reporting on the new loses. One of their jobs was to remove the dead birds from the wagon until Mr. Handsome got home from work and was able to buried them.

Don’t you just love how I made my kids do the dirty work? It’s proof that I’m a really smart mama. At least that’s my take on it.

Note how Yo-Yo is breathing—through his mouth with his cheeks all puffed out.

Even when we finally got the chickens into their spiffy new house, they still occasionally died.

Mr. Handsome got really sick of burying birds; however, we may have a really good corn crop this year—the corn will grow tall and green … in splotches.

We’re down to thirty-three birds now. Actually, we’re down to thirty-two birds and one Dolly Parton. See, sometimes the chickens didn’t want to walk forward when Mr. Handsome moved the heavy chicken tractor, so they’d slip out under the temporarily-elevated bar. Once Mr. Handsome didn’t see one of the chickens and … oh dear, I don’t know if I should tell you this but… he set it down on the poor bird. SQUAWK! Of course he lifted it right up again as soon as he realized something was wrong, but the bird was changed for its short life—its one breast protrudes wa-ay forward. So now Mr. Handsome refers to the birds as “Dolly and Her Crew.” They cackle in harmony.

Just kidding.

Dolly and Her Crew are going under the knife on Saturday. Our method is nice and simple. (Nice and simple for me, I should say, seeing as I don’t have anything to do with the knives and necks.)

We use a killing cone and it’s really quite tidy—no headless chickens running around spritzing everything with sacrificial blood (and no, we do not believe in animal sacrifice—it’s just that I’m reading about the Hmongs right now and they do, so when I think of killing chickens I think of the Hmongs … but really, we’re very different—they sometimes butchered their chickens, or pigs!, inside their houses). That is, as long as they’re fully dead when you lower them into the kettle of hot water, but that’s another story.

We’ve butchered chickens two times before. We processed (oops, that’s a nice word) twelve the first time and about eighteen the second time. The second time around we all—my siblings, my Tiny-Little Brother’s friend, a foster kid, and my little sister Rose (through the Big Brother Big Sister agency)—congregated at my parents’ house for the day-long event.

This time my brothers and my parents are congregating at our house, no extra helping hands and nearly twice as many chickens. It will be a long day. Except that now we’re really experienced and know exactly what we’re doing—nobody will be uncool enough to go accidentally plopping a still-alive chicken in scalding water.

Family Story: When my Tiny-Little Brother was really tiny and little, as in two-years-old, we butchered rabbits. He curiously watched as my father hung them up, cut their throats and skinned them, but then he innocently asked my dad, “Are you going to hang me up and make me dead, too?” My father sent him in to the house.

This is the same brother who will dissect and eat anything. Just a few years back he fried up a pan of locusts and munched away. (He even got Miss Becca Boo to eat one—we have it on video.) Moral of the story: If you allow your children to observe the butchering day goings-on, it won’t be long before they will be happily crunching on honey-dipped locusts.

When we’ve butchered, my kids mostly watched from a distance.

They weren’t crazy about the events, but they weren’t traumatized either. It’s just life.

Some parts of life you wrinkle up your nose at but you do anyway, like cleaning the bathroom. Or eviscerating chickens.

My father is a science teacher, so he’s good at that part. Maybe I’ll have Yo-Yo and Miss Becca Boo de-assemble and rebuild a dead chicken—homeschool science 101.

I’m only partly kidding.

What will I be doing all the blood-letting day long? Feeding people, of course: we’ll be feasting on honey-baked chicken, egg salad sandwiches, and liver pâté with crackers. Just kidding! I’ll be sticking with a vegetarian dish of baked lentils and cheese because I do have my limits.

When nobody wants to eat anymore and I can’t invent any other pressing chores, I’ll be grimly plucking pin feathers and whining: This is sooo disgusting. I don’t know why we are doing it. The smell! The mess! Gross.

And I think it would be cool to raise hogs. Huh.

Ps. We’re not the only crazy chicken killing people around. For more stories look here and here.