Born To Hand Jive

If you had a special talent would you show it off every day, seeking attention and praise? Well if you were smart you would save that special talent for a very special day in which you could shock your peers, stun your wife and win a $50 prize. What I am speaking of friends is Keith's dance, hand jive and gymnastics talents. Who knew he could cartwheel?

As you can see Keith and I dressed as Greasers for Halloween this year. As it turned out another couple tried to steal our idea and they too showed up as Sandra D and Danny. Big mistake for them. Their costumes were obviously unmotivated, cheap internet versions while ours were creative, homemade duds. For some reason though, the judges seemed torn between the two duos for the "best couple costume", and they decided to have a dance off to determine who would get the prize. Poor other vinyl T-bird jacket greasers. They simply did not stand a chance. You see, not  only did Keith and I just have our first country swing dance class (easy enough to embellish into a fifties style swing), but 6 foot 4 inch Keith has also got some mad cartwheelin' skills. Needless to say, we departed victorious with some fancy T-shirts (mine has a topless hula dancer on the front) and a $50 gift certificate. 

Hand Jive!

Here's a picture of some other best costume winners: our neighbors kids won "scariest" and "most original" for their zombie and Oscar the Grouch costumes. So cute!

Kirby's Kluckers

The more you know about food and where it comes from, the more paralyzing shopping is. My ideal shopping cart would include food that is grown locally, without antibiotics, and is nutritious. It should be from animals that are raised with all their original parts, natural habitats should be minimally impacted to grow and harvest the food, it should be packaged in environmentally friendly packaging, no workers should be exploited in the growing and harvesting process, and minimal oil should burned to transport it. Oh, and I would like it to be delicious please. Is that too much to ask?

There is a guy at our local farmer's market that sells chickens. From his sign I can only infer that his name is Kirby, and I have been buying his Kluckers for the past several weeks now. I was so excited when he showed up at the farmers market because the chickens in the local supermarket are barely passable as meat. They are generally droopy and fatty, and I shudder to think what the conditions they are raised under might be. I am always looking to shop locally, but ironically our nation's heartland doesn't produce much beyond corn and soybeans (which you can't find in the supermarket btw). So, when I saw the local Kluckers, I excitedly bought as many as would fit into my freezer. Kirby's sign also has messages scrawled on it about "natural" and "no antibiotics, no hormones". Wow, that's all great I thought.

Well more recently I have thought to ask Kirby the details of his chicken operation. He tells me that he raises about 70,000 "birds" a year, and he raises them in 9x12 roofless buildings each containing about 80 birds.
9x12: that's how big our new patio is. When I imagine 80 birds living on our patio, it is not a paradise that I am envisioning. The birds are obviously cramped. And unlike "free-range" chickens these chickens do not have access to the fields around them (although I understand most free-range birds aren't smart enough to venture outside anyway).

"Well, do they all have thier beaks?" I ask
"Yeah, they have their beaks" says Kirby.
I explained to Kirby that I had read somewhere that people who raise chickens will frequently pull off thier beaks so that they don't peck eachother all up while they're mashed together in thier ridiculously undersized cages.
"I feed 'em lots of protein, and when they have enough protein they don't peck"
"I had understood that they pecked because they were stressed from the tight living quarters, but you're saying that their trying to eat eachother?" I asked.
Kirby turned to me in a nice, but pitying, special ed teacher kind of voice and said:
"Well did you know that meat has protein?"
"Yes, I did know that" I say.
"Well if they get protein then they don't peck.
Apparently the tightly packed birds are actually trying to gobble each other up.

Whatever. All I know is that I have basically 3 options for poultry at this time.
#1: buy floppy, fatty Tyson birds from the supermarket and feel terribly guilty while eating moderately edible chicken.
#2: buy Kirby's Kluckers and know the pea-brained birds aren't exactly living the dream, but at least they have their beaks, and also know a ton of fossil fuel wasn't used to get them to my dinner plate
#3: Don't eat chicken -- no way!

While I am disappointed that buying food in an environmentally and socially responsible, and animal-friendly way is all but impossible in America's heartland, I am comforted to at least know that my fried chicken never knew the displeasure of going beakless.

Patio-Ho!

Look at our awesome new patio! I know this has been much anticipated by the general public what with all the hype and all. It has been much anticipated by us as well, since we actually started the project about 3 months ago. The funny thing is, the actual project only took two days, but we managed to spread it out over an entire season. That does not deter me from planning further projects though. I think the patio is awesome, and I am already drawing up plans for more landscaping and general backyard beautification. Of course I will wait until next year for that since it may snow any day, and that way our blisters will have healed, and hopefully by then Keith will have forgotten how much work this patio was.

Action Shot

Finished result

I think we may even have a few nice evenings left this year for enjoying margaritas outdoors.

Cheers!

This Week In Merle

Sunday Keith and I drove down to Kearney in order to drop Merle and Braedon off at the airport there, thus concluding their week long Nebraska adventure with us. I think a decent time was had by all. We tried to show the duo some of the finer things Nebraska has to offer including ankle deep rivers, copious dog walks, kite festivals in scorching heat despite concomitant wind storms, and of course a visit from Keith's mom and grandpa.







Merle claims the reading time and "gentle breezes" were relaxing, she seemed to get along well with our children, and she didn't seem too freaked out by ginormous bugs that exist in our back yard.

Keith and I were glad for our first (and in all likelihood last) visit from someone in my family, and we are happy that travel went well for them.

Since most of you have likely already seen the above pics on Keith's blog, let me close with some lovely shots of a perfect golf swing. Go get 'em Tiger.

GQ Golfer

I never could have predicted this: I never thought I would ever pick up golfing. I guess I just don't see myself in that stereotype. Golfers are pretty much made of time and money aren't they? Golfing happens to be a great distraction from a hectic lifestyle though, and it's a lot easier on your aging body than a lot of other sports I can think of. The game is oddly easy to pick up, but very difficult to master. I say that with only a total of 36 holes under my belt, but I feel confident in my assessment.

I also never could have predicted Keith's interest in the sport. As most of you know Keith is not much for spouting off information about himself, so it wasn't until just recently that I even knew what a die hard golfer he had been in his youth. He's still pretty good, and he looks awfully good sporting a bag of clubs.
He's working on replacing his hazardous, head-flying-off clubs with new ones. We used the new irons today, and here is Keith transferring them to his new, less torn up and duct taped bag.


I'm off to watch some olympic volleyball: Go May/Walsh!

This Just In

I now have my cell phone back (or at least a very close facsimile with the same number). Feel free to resume sending me pointless and distracting but much appreciated text messages. Or if you are my family, feel free to continue to not ever call me unless you have a medical question.

The Bounty

It is official. My garden has borne food, therefore I am a gardener. Look at all the different tomatoes I made! I also grew some huge zucchini, but that was sort of an accident. Although the tomatoes have boosted my gardening confidence some, I also had a small blow when I recently tried to harvest some carrots. This is the stuff no one tells you. How in the world can you tell when a root is mature? I figured since carrots were showing up at our farmer's market, then mine must be ready too, right? Wrong.

While I only planted 2 zucchini seeds, the zucchini has, of course overtaken our small garden plot. At first I was overwhelmed by the rate of their growth, but I have since learned that if you pick them small, they are much more manageable and they taste better too. I really like the recipe idea published here for pasta with zucchini ribbons (scroll to bottom for the recipe). I have actually made all three of the recipes there. The pancakes were also delish, the squash goat cheese bean thing, not so much. While I'm on a roll with zucchini, let me share another simple, but great little recipe, courtesy of Mollie Katzen.

Heat some olive oil and pressed garlic over medium heat until the garlic is soft.
Use small zucchini, about 5-6inches long. Cut them in half length wise then place them cut side down in the pan. Cook about 5 minutes.
Turn them over. Sprinkle with bread crumbs and parmesan cheese. Cook 1-2min more, then place the pan under the broiler for a few minutes until the cheese is bubbly and brown.
Delicious!