Nov

30

Clearing the Hurdle

Filed Under school, sorority stuff | 1 Comment

I am alive and kicking — emphasis on the kicking part — despite what my neglectful actions may have led you to believe.

I’m wrapping up what was probably the busiest week I’ve had all semester. There were papers due, assignments, a speech, a portfolio, discussion leadership, etc. I’ll be glad when it’s officially over as of 12:20PM tomorrow (technically today…this was going to be the first night I went to bed before midnight in the last couple months, but that’s not happening).

It’s certainly been an interesting week, though. Monday was sorority election night. I’m maintaining my position as 1st Vice President. My little sis got president and her little sis (my grand little) got 2nd Vice President. To celebrate our family’s rise to power, we all had a McStwiller family dinner with my other little sis. I think I’m the only one to call use the McStwiller name, but I think it’ll catch on and more people will start using it.

I just hope they don’t use it in the future to say things like, “Oh, yes, the McStwiller Era. Isn’t that when the busting of kneecaps and bribing of city officials got put into our bylaws?”

Nov

27

Startling Accurate

Filed Under family, ferrets | Comments Off

As our Thanksgiving celebration at Lil’s house was winding down, I was sitting in their living room with my great-aunt Audrey, my (Second? First once removed?) cousin, Chrissy, Mom and Dad, Jake and Cleya.  The latter two were working on some art depicting a barnyard scene, but Cleya, having already drawn various creatures including a pig in a mud puddle and a bear, had run out of ideas regarding which animal to add to the picture.

We all offered seemingly millions of suggestions, which Cleya shot down one by one with a flawless logic held only by four year olds.  Finally, I remembered how interested she is in Maizy and Huckleberry Finn.

“You should draw a ferret,” I suggested.

Exasperated, as though her dear aunt Kalin was the simplest of beings, she exclaimed, “I already drew a big rat.”

Nov

25

Thanksgiving, part 2

Filed Under family, sisters | 2 Comments

The other best part of Thanksgiving is…

FAMILY

Marissa and Cleya took a moment from playing with Pinky the Dog and watching the parade to pose for a picture.

Then Cleya posed solo because Pinky and Rissy were cramping her style.

Right then, a friendly little alien swooped by my feet. Wait, no, that’s Lirah, in her saucer thingy.

Mom and Marissa found the most difficult background and posed in front of it for a picture.

Gramps and Rissy. They are secretly sizing each other up for the battle of the gravy.

Thanksgiving is Dad’s favorite holiday. Or at least it was last time I asked him what his favorite holiday was, which was probably when I was in the 6th grade. I assume it hasn’t changed.

Lirah and Jake, anxiously awaiting the beginning of lunch/dinner.

Grammy and Mom.

This is a bamboo plant in Lil’s kitchen. She wouldn’t pose for a picture, so I had to bide my time.

The hostess herself, Lil.

Somehow Marissa’s husband, Geoff, managed to escape the camera. Rhys was at his dad’s for the holiday. April, Dennis and their kids missed the celebration for some reason. Supposedly they were being nice and quarantining their sick children, but I have my sources that say that Apey and her entire congregation were too busy organizing and participating in the T-Day Bar Crawl ‘07. Who are you going to believe, the minister or the mysterious, slightly vague sources?

Nov

24

Thanksgiving, part 1

Filed Under Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Thanksgiving was awesome.

One of the best parts of Thanksgiving was, of course…

THE FOOD

At 10AM, we had liver pate, as is tradition. Front and center is the spinach & artichoke dip that my sister April made especially for me to make up for the fact that she never visits me. It was delicious. This picture is a little misleading, what with all the vegetables everywhere. You’ll notice that the dip is well worked over while the vegetables are still filling their bowl.

We also had wine coolers with our pate. This bottle is empty, but I had very little to do with that.

Here is our lovely table before we filled our plates and started devouring everything.

Mmmmmm, potatoes.

Here was part of the starting line up. Cranberry sauce, corn…stuff, potatoes, sweet potatoes, oyster stuffing, regular stuffing, turkey and salad. There was also some squash salad stuff that didn’t make it into the picture, for some reason. But it was tasty.

The star of the show: The Gravy.

This is the corn stuff. It was delicious.

And lastly but never leastly, the dessert. Pecan pie, pumpkin pie, a pie that Lil made (chocolate chips, walnuts and cranberries soaked in mandarin vodka), and apple crisp with a cheesecake base.

Nov

21

Giving Thanks

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The winner of my first ever Guess What the Heck We’re Doing Contest is none other than my sister Marissa. In an alarming display of contest domination, she swept in with the first comment and confidently declared that we were making goat’s milk soap. How did she know?! It’s almost like she had some kind of insider information! It’s almost like I stopped at her house on the way home a couple weekends ago and had a conversation with her about our goat’s milk soap project, and then just kind of assumed she would be gracious enough not to guess on a contest where she had an unfair advantage!

As her prize, Marissa will be receiving a bar of homemade goat’s milk soap from our Ag Practicum group. I can’t guarantee that it will be excellent soap, but I can guarantee that (I think that) it (probably) won’t burn your face off (entirely).

Ag Practicum is a class where students divide into groups and do projects to produce and market ag-related projects. Our group chose to make goat’s milk soap, and we’ve been struggling to find a good recipe. The first batch ended up burned, and smelled like someone lit a dead goat on fire and poured it into a little soap mold. It also had strange blue spots in it, which is weird because not only is the color of the soap a creamy yellowish color, but we had added tan dye to the mix.

Our second batch refused to thicken. We stirred it for over an hour, hoping that it would begin to trace (where you drizzle the soap onto itself and it doesn’t immediately sink back in, but rather has the consistency of honey). We eventually gave up and poured it into the mold. We came back to find that the soap never thickened, and was a buttery consistency. The pink dye had migrated to the top half of the pan, with the bottom part being a dark tan color.

Last Wednesday, we gathered in the classroom building of our university farm (which has a kitchen) and tried out two new recipes, complete with two new dyes. We made both recipes at the same time, and as the final stirring commenced, we remained skeptical. Nearly thirty minutes later, one of them started to trace.

“It’s TRACING!” shouted one of my group members. We all ran to gather around it, taking pictures and celebrating.

I ran out the door and up the rickety stairs to the bell tower of our university farm. I leaped onto the the thick rope hanging from the bell and used every ounce of my strength to pull it down, making the bell tip back and forth to sound the alarm.

“It’s TRAAAAAAAAAAACCCCIIINNGGG!” I yelled, and the townspeople began to run from their homes to gather around the classroom building. We celebrated by dancing around a maypole and slaughtering a sheep and someone brought deviled eggs, but they were gone within, like, fifteen minutes.

And that, my friends, is the history of Thanksgiving.

Nov

20

Flying the Coop

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Tomorrow I am outta here. Our Thanksgiving break officially starts Wednesday (yeah, they can’t just give us a full week off and instead insist on making us go to classes for Monday & Tuesday).

After my one hour, fifty minute lecture on statistics, I will be barreling out of the building, pausing briefly to leap into the air and click my heels together, before hurriedly gathering my animals for the long drive home.

Y’all can expect many pictures of assorted animals doing random things in the next few days. Heck, I might even throw in some of people just to mix it up a bit.

Nov

17

Nature

Filed Under dogs | 1 Comment

Fall is one of my favorite seasons. Well, it’s in the top 4. While it kind of depresses me that all the nice greenness is leaving in order to be replaced by snow and mud and brown dead stuff, fall always provides some interesting visual fodder to make up for all the death.

Last weekend, I spent some time taking pictures of various nature-y things around the farm. I was stuck at school during all the big, bright leaf changing time, but there was still a lot to be seen if you looked for it.

These are walnuts. There are approximately 500 bazillion of them on the ground around the farm.

Nature…

…it’s delicious.

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