As the bones clinked together on the table I knew this was my favorite class. My wizened anthropology professor walked to the front of the room and carefully opened a tattered book and started telling of the safari he’d been on in African safari while studying ancient peoples and cultures. The book had been given to him by one of the tribe’s warriors. I was fascinated by the uniquely designed boomerang as it was passed around the classroom. Our class final was to build a boat out of popsicle sticks that could hold pennies. Anthropology and studying the ways and reasons people act and react has always fascinated me. For instance, why do men hurl themselves to the earth from tall wooden towers in Vanuatu? As I later learned, its a ritual to predict the success of that years yam harvest. Like the boat I built out of popsicle sticks so I built a vast knowledge of the world through that class. Even more than that my the education my professor instilled in me a new curiosity for the world and spark of adventure that will take me through the world’s mediocrity.
Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.
-Albert Einstein
Month: November 2018
The Prairie: Keep Reading
The snow is a drifting terribly tall and chill outside cause your noses to run. The winds a howling’ as the coyotes howl out their love songs. The deep and dreary winter is closing in soon to have the prairie in a death grip. Winter, as my dad puts it, is the time for “underachieving.” it is definitely a fine time to “huddle down in the wood shavings” and curl up with a good book. That’s a colloquial way we say stay inside warm in front of the fire with a book. Or another is, “It’s a good day to stay inside and leave the buffalo alone.” Language and colloquial sayings are dying and I have been so blessed to have grown up learning them.
Which, I daresay I will be doing quite a lot more reading this winter as my surgery will take its toll. But! On the sunny side I have compiled a goal sheet of 20 books that I hope to finish. As I err on the of Classics side of the bookshelf, I do believe I can hopefully read a couple.
Here are some I hope to read:
Inverno, Dante
As I Lay Dying, Hemingway
Notes from the Underground
I made a delicious meal tonight of spaghetti and meatballs; quite topical if I say so myself!
All the spices I used were dried though I definitely recommend using fresh if you have them. I decided to use up the turkey burgers we already had to clear out some space in the fridge.
1 can tomato sauce
1/2 onion
Olive oil
Oregano
Parsley
Basil
Salt & pepper
Garlic powder (definitely use garlic cloves if you have ’em)
Turkey burgers
mozzarella cheese (I used fresh)
Drizzle the olive oil in the pan, set on medium-high, and chop the onion sliding into the hot oil. Sauté. Add the spices and let cook for 5 minutes making sure they flavors meld. Break up your turkey burgers and add to sauce, stirring with a spatula to coat with sauce. Then lay in slices of fresh mozzarella cheese cook for another 5 minutes. Then viola! You have a tasty spaghetti and turkey dish!
Traps and Coffee
The cold wind hit my Columbia jacket with a gust of unknown excitement as I circled wire into a double loop. Hint. hint. hasenpfeffer… I’m always up for a challenge. And when my dad doubted my idea of trapping rabbits I had a challenge. So I watched a couple videos on Youtube about making rabbit snares. And I found a Hasenpfeffer recipe. Though I have no idea how to cook rabbit. There’s an old rabbit trapper in town though that might share a couple rabbit cooking secrets with me. I’m all about survival living, or homesteading is probably closer to what I like. I think it would be awesome to have a veggie patch, a couple fruit trees and then for protein rely on hunting or trapping. A living off the land lifestyle appeals to me. And rabbit trapping is where I’ll set my first snare.
I’ve been told rabbit tastes like chicken.
Why, you might ask did I get this sudden enthusiasm for trapping rabbits? Today is the first day of a new year for me and I felt as if I had to do something extremely new and totally out of my comfort zone. Now, of course, I am at the farm alone for the large part of the day. I can’t drive, also there’s no vehicles here, so that limits my activities substantially.
So, I occupy my time with fresh bursts of creativity and living authentically. It’s a limited life but I sure push the seems of it. Also, college applications are due and learning doesn’t just stop after college I am an active member of EdX which I thoroughly enjoy because you can study anything under the sun and most classes can be taken completely free! Hmmmm… trapping?
Just kidding I’m taking a English for Journalists and a Basic Spanish 2
Hopefully, the Spanish 2 course can prep me to complete the TEFL certification and travel abroad.
Repetition doesn’t create memories, new experiences do.
-Brian Chesky
“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.” –Marcus Aurelius
Photo by Felix Mittermeier on Pexels.com
Bold Scottish Future
“The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley.”
― Robert Burns
What an excellent last morning to have a hot Scott brew, (this of course is a brew of coffee)! This morning’s coffee was a toasty brew scented with nutmeg and a spike of cinnamon, cloves, with a shot of chili powder. Quite a robust combination for a robust year completed, I do declare! The drink suited me quite well this snowy morning as I gazed out the window and thought about the spices I had added to my coffee on this last day before my birthday.
Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com
My chosen spices reflect the kind of year I had. The cinnamon and nutmeg are bold flavors. While the cloves are a feisty flavor. And the chili powder is a strong spicy somewhat ruthless kick. Like the spices my year has played out in a rather interesting collage of, dare I say, exhilarating events.
I thought about all the adventures I have had this year. Of all the struggles I’ve endured. Like the week my cupboards were completely bare and I ate nothing but porridge, or when I biked the whole length around my town, or drove a school bus. I also thought about all the adventures I’m planning for this coming year. The extravagant adventures that will hopefully take me on many adventures around the world, Scotland, Ireland, Malaysia, Turkey, Kuwait… etc. There are one too many decisions to be made in this coming year. I am a trifle too exhilarated for them all to come!
I would love to bake scones and crumpets for my coffee shop, to sail to Scotland and enjoy a wee bit of good whiskey. To learn Scottish-Gaelic and to earn my Bachelor’s degree, and publish a book. With all these dreams their is a might bit of trouble. Haha, is that any surprise, that there be a fly in the ointment? Ha! My funds for such adventures are a mighty bit scant. Tarnation!
Someday, I hope to gather the funds to travel to Scotland, though. Honestly, I would like to someday live there, I think Inverness would be a lovely place to live. I’m a country mouse and I daresay that will not change when I move. As I feel comfort in having the space of the farm.
I’d like to have a little farm with a milking cow, a gaggle of geese and chickens. I’d like a nice nook in the front room with a rocking chair that I will sit at and knit.
Well, like all good chapters in life, their final strokes of justice permeate even the most unsteady futures.
5 Feet of Snow
5 feet of snow
Sits around my house.
Apple trees hold snow
On their limbs
Like heart crossed lovers.
5 feet of snow
Covers the ground
Like a white
Mink coat my momma wears.
5 feet of snow
Can be a blessing
And a condemnation.
The snow saves
The snow kills.
The apple trees know
How many will fall.
How may will provide nutrients for their roots.
In 5 feet of snow.
Birthday Wishes
Dear followers,
thank you so much for your patronage to my site. With my birthday approaching I have began a fundraiser that I am running. Please check it out and if you so find it in your heart please donate to this cause.
Thank you for your continued reading. Let your light shine!
Sweet Potato, Black Bean and Cumin Tacos
As I crunched into the crunchy cucumber I taste a mix of cumin and paprika. Tonight I had tacos. Taco Friday; I think tacos should be celebrated on more than Tuesday 😉
Here’s my tasty taco recipe: 2 tacos
splash of olive oil
1 sweet potatoes
black beans
dash cumin
dash paprika
dash salt & pepper
shredded mozzarella cheese
1 tortilla
Heat oil in a skillet and wait for the fragrance of olive oil, then add sweet potato and cook, cooking depends on how hard/soft you like your sweet potatoes. After a bit cooked add in 1/4-1/2 c. black beans, cumin, paprika, and salt & pepper. Let this sizzle on the stove for about 2 minutes. Then spoon into two tortillas and top with cheese.
I then added a spiked dill cucumber sauce.
dill
cucumber
vinegar
chop and combine everything.
And the grand finale of the meal was Irish coffee. Which was soooo good!! And sooo simple.
Brew a pot of coffee, I used Equal Exchange Fairly Traded, Organic African Roots, coffee beans. Add hot coffee to mug then add 1 jigger (this is a shot glass) whiskey (I used Tennessee because it was all I had on hand) 1 jigger of creme de cacao. Then I whipped my own cream out of heavy cream. Then sprinkled a dash of nutmeg. Quite tasty! A great conclusion to a wonderful meal.
In with Anesthesia Out with Flat
“Well, it looks as if we have a date!” My doctor proudly exclaimed as he entered the room. Sitting on his spinning stool he was very good at holding a poker face.
He then described what anesthesia he’d use and about the post-op medications and how I should keep my foot elevated. Oh lord, help me through this! I am hoping to read, achieve my TEFL certification and listen to a lot of audio books.
My surgery will be arch reconstruction. Oh joy! it seems nearly a year ago that I wrote a poem about arches. Haha! Little did I know.
So it will come to pass, the life-changing surgery and my year long recovery.
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