Yum, Yum Eat 'Em Up

Despite the fact that we ate sitting on the living room rug with our chins practically resting on the coffee table, last night's dinner was so delicious it felt like we were celebrating! In hopes that folks the world over will replicate and relish in it as much as we did, I'm writing a special food post (which I intend to do more of in the coming weeks). Besides the delectable taste, the greatest parts about this meal were that it was easy to make, included a healthful smattering of ingredients, and featured an almost pedestrian dish -- pork chops. Chops get a bad rap because they're common fare and often poorly cooked. Nothing says yuck like a shoe-leather, rubbery chop from factory-farmed pork; but a thick-cut pastured pork chop cooked to perfection warrants some major mouth-watering. I marched to our deep freezer yesterday morning to find what vestiges I could from last year's hog. Sure enough a package of 1-1/2 inch chops was beaming with celestial light in front of me. Yum. Below are very simple iron skillet instructions for the tastiest chops ever. The accompanying veggies that graced our plates alongside the meat are also well worth it (*Don't miss the veggie recipe at the bottom.*).

Demolition Derby: Bringin' Down the House

I confess I'm feeling muscles today that I haven't felt in quite a while. I suppose five hours of hammering, chiseling, squatting, bending, pulling, and wrestling with a pry bar could be the culprit. Yesterday was the official start of our newest homestead project -- a house demo.

Living Room Flooring Before

Living Room Flooring After

SOLD! ...To the Highest Bidder

This time of year in our neck of the woods we're on the cusp of something grand -- Auction Season! In our county there are land and real estate auctions year round, but Weldon and I neither have the pocketbook for nor interest in such large-scale purchases. However, our interest abounds in treasures untold, stuff that has a story, and...let's be honest...a good bargain. Spring fever has started to perk but we're not quite ready to get caught up in the great outdoors. Instead, we've begun eyeing the newspaper for sales and can feel in our bones that Auction Season, like spring, is about to unfurl in a glorious array before our very eyes. From now until autumn the affairs are frequent and the variety of goods available exponentially increases. So much for Sotheby's -- we're off to a good country auction where the mono-syllabic babbling is peppered with jokes about cornbread and the concession stand is graciously goopy! Just last night we bought a passel of new and nearly-new tools that will come in handy for homestead construction projects in the coming years. We also chalked up the outing as our celebration of Weldon's birthday (which he gladly shouldered). We gained MUCH more than we spent in the evening and had a blast. What a win-win!

Spoils from last night!

Do You Have An Air Compressor?

I'd never found an air compressor romantic...I dare say most of the population hasn't. But not too long ago in a land very near to here the words "air compressor" found themselves in Cupid's vocabulary. This week folks all over the country are making plans, boycotting, and/or forgetting the annual celebration of lovers and sweethearts. It couldn't be a more perfect time to tell the sappy and hilarious tale of how I met and fell in love with my husband. And for anyone still up in the air on their plans for Thursday, I'll share a few quirky (and budget-friendly) ideas on how we handle V-Day.

Field Trip for a Grown-Up

There's nothing like a good field trip! I've been a sucker for them as long as I can remember. I have vivid memories of my elementary classes in Connecticut going to The Nature Center, The Norwalk Aquarium, the local planetarium, the living history museum at colonial Sturbridge Village, the Peabody Museum of natural science, and the cloisters near New York City. One particular fourth grade field trip to the P.T. Barnum Museum commemorated the life and showmanship of this original circus-master from my home state. Who doesn't want to see a mummy, the clothes of a dwarf and his dwarf wife, photos of Siamese twins, and a room-sized model train village all under one roof!?! It was such an awe-inspiring outing for me that I insisted my family return to the museum where I proceeded to recount the entire tour (probably verbatim). Even in college I relished the opportunity to go out into the world and experience what the lectures and notebooks had been brimming with. I made it to the Cumberland County Jail (that was a fun one to call home and report about), a water treatment plant, a landfill, and the incredulously creepy village of Centralia, Pennsylvania where an unquenchable fire has burned for decades in the coal seams under the town. I realize that us grown-ups have to focus on work and the everyday busyness of life, but I'm a firm believer that we all need field trips, even if we sometimes call them vacations.