Hunting and Gathering

Saturday, Rob went on his first pheasant hunt! It was opening weekend for residents of South Dakota and we were both itching for him to “bring home some bacon.”

He got his three (three per day) and here they are!

He plucked them while I prepped the kitchen sink and counter to receive raw meat. It wasn’t as hard to prepare the birds as I’d thought! Great!

Gus enjoyed the process too

Last night, I cooked two birds. I cut them into pieces, seared them in a pan and placed them in the crock pot along with…

fresh carrots from the farmers market

chopped potato

fresh onion, picked that morning from a friend’s garden

garlic

one can of cream of mushroom soup

and season to taste

After being on high for about 5 hours, the meat fell off the bone!

Some modifications for next time…

I think I shall de-skin them for the crock pot. There were a few half-feathers left on the skin that neither of us enjoyed not being able to easily remove (as the meat fell apart due to its awesome tenderness).

I shall definitely add more seasoning. The pheasant flavor was good – like quality dark meat chicken, but not flavorful enough to stand as I had it with very little seasoning.

I am so glad hunting season is upon us! I love cooking food that I know where it came from!

A note on seasonal cooking:

I LOVE cooking with the seasons – I cook in the summer with lots of fresh veggies, berries, herbs. Autumn is thanksgiving-ey food with late-season veggies, green beans, squash, pumpkins, cinnamon, getting a little heavier on the meat. Winter has more meat, using canned veggies, potatoes, stews, chilis, and lots of baked desserts. And spring gives me leafy greens and the beginnings of summer.

I think the body actually needs more of what “cooking for the season” gives. For instance, in summer, we need foods that give us energy and are served fresh. And in winter, we crave stews with meat and carrots and potatoes… roughly. Plus, it makes each season’s food that much more exciting when it’s time!

Right now, South Dakota is in it’s summer produce season (weird, I know). The farmers market has lots of tomatoes, zucchini, and peppers. A little too eager for fall, I bought two pomegrantes from the grocery store to put in my “fall” dinner salad to serve with one of the pheasants.

Some of my produce haul

I also jumped a little into fall with my pumpkin I bought at the pumpkin festival downtown last weekend. I roasted the seeds, steamed the pieces, and pureed the pulp, saving most in the freezer for later. This is what I’ve made so far. Pumpkin cake per Martha Stewart. Tastes of fall!

So… the seasons here follow the actual “seasonal” calendar… the first day of summer is June 22; fall stars on September 22; winter begins December 22; and spring embarks on March 22. I know, weird.

Just a comparison for those of you who’ve never lived in the great state of Texas… these are the season I grew up with…

Spring is the beautiful months of March and April when the bluebonnets grow and the weather is perfect! Summer is May through most of October. There’s inevitably a cold front around Halloween that makes your super cute costume unwearable. There’s maybe a few days of fall mixed into October and November. Then, it jumps back and forth from cold and warm until January. Then, winter in January and February. And that’s a Texas season!

Now you can imagine my shock at the realization of what fall is! All those cute clothes in the fall catalogs that I always thought were so impractical are not! A three-quarter sleeve jacket would be totally appropriate in this weather where the shade is 50s and the sun is 70s. Who knew? Not me.

Enjoy your fall, wherever you may be!

Rearranging, the Genesis

In the beginning, I unpacked the boxes and reduced the magnitude of cardboard in the garage.

And I saw the light, that it was good and I divided the recyclable materials from the household goods.

The unpacking stage complete (well, mostly), I took on the task of rearranging.

Taking more easily-defined spaces first, the first day I rearranged the shed. I took everything out and used my new shopvac (which I LOVE, by the way!) and sucked up all the spiderwebs and dirt. Then, I put everything back in the shed in a more organized fashion. And I saw that it was good.

The second day, I rearranged the garage (for the second time), moving everything out (everything I could carry, that is!), vacuuming and putting “garage stuff” back in the garage. Of course, there’s still some stuff in there that’s doesn’t “go” in the garage, but it shall find a place one day.

The third day, I attempted the basement. A less-defined space, I only completed the utility room. After emptying and vacuuming, I left laundry room items and dog items, along with sodas and paper towels.

That is where I’ve stopped. The rest of the basement is filled with  chaos - without form, and void of awesomeness. Even with my totally nifty (made them MYSELF!) storage cubes (Ana White’s website is wonderful! She makes everything so accessible and simple!), I cannot overcome the chaos.

I have discovered I lack storage in the form of items of furniture. I didn’t know! Apparently, that’s where people put their random items… Anyway, I am almost certain that these cubes are my ticket to organization. I never know what kind of space I’ll be living in next year, so why buy huge wall-covering storage pieces? Well, with these, I can stack them tall, wide (for a bench), make a cube… lots of ideas! And no big wall required! I only made three to start, but if I like them as much as I think I will, I will be making more (maybe some bigger ones to store larger items…).

Anyway, here’s some pics of us using our new table saw and nail gun (SO easy to use!! LOVE it!!). (We are planning building our own kitchen cabinets, thus the woodworking purchases).

 

What a Weekend!

Well, I’ll begin by showing off my latest DIY project. I changed our old mailbox! I ordered more interesting vinyl numbers off the internet, took a big chunk of my day unscrewing the old rusted screws, found a new base from our scrap wood, cut it to size with our new table saw, and attached the platform and new mailbox to the post! Simple, but not quick.

Old mailbox

New mailbox!

We’ve been checking out surplus building materials from places where we’ve been shopping – carpet remnants, tile rejects, etc. We got a tip about the Black Hills Homebuilders Association Auction this past weekend. I went Friday to scope it out. It looked promising.

So… Saturday we went at 9 for the beginning of the auction and found they wouldn’t be getting to the stuff we wanted for a few hours. So… we went to the Downtown Pumpkin Festival!

Now, I’m really sorry, but we forgot the camera at home so we didn’t get pictures of the Giant Pumpkin Contest (they were HUGE – huge like 1200 pounds huge!), the inspiring farmers market, the free samples of delicious sausage (bought spicy breakfast and Czech), the daschund races, the beer garden, and the many locals in t-shirts for the chilly yet sunny weather. It was great fun!

At noon-ish, we went back to the auction. And yet again, I love Rob’s many skills! He really is very very skilled at so many things! He is really skilled at auctions! We didn’t get some of the stuff we were interested in, but what we did get… man oh man! We got some GREAT deals!!!

Our first purchase was a bathroom exhaust fan and light (with a free one thrown in) for $30. Not a crazy good deal, more like “on sale at Lowe’s.”

Our next was a Moen shower faucet and bath fixture, with valves. It’s WAY nicer than the ones at Lowe’s – heavy in your hand and everything! Plus, a really nice design. Now, we checked online and it retails for $557. We got it for $80! oh YEA!

Getting excited now at the cheapness of stuff that we wanted (and apparently others weren’t interested in), I picked up a box of 7 doorknobs (the ones in our house are all different!) for $10. These retail around $40 each set.

Rob got a water pump for the aquaponics system we have planned for the greenhouse for $10. It’s meant to be a hot tub water pump and is super nice!

Then, the tile was up! Oh boy! We prioritized and made our plan. Our first two choices went for much higher than we were willing to pay. When some nice black tile went up, we decided to bid and maybe make a black and white bathroom (always classic)… we got our future upstairs bathroom floor for $40!

We plan on mixing the bigger tile with the smaller matching ones to cover the floor.

The last one is our best deal yet! There was some very pretty slate that I was just wanting to see what it went for. When no one was really interested, we got this for the future kitchen (plenty at over 100 sq.ft) for $40! I am falling more and more in love with it every time I see it. Some of the pieces remind me of a sunset. Plus, it’ll look great with the concrete countertops we have planned!

 

In all, it was a VERY successful weekend! And I’m happy that our remodel budget is happy too! Now, if radiant floor heat was just cheaper…

First Impressions

So… Rapid City is nice! Although South Dakota greeted us much like Abilene did with a cold front our first morning; right now it’s in the 70s and sunny. I’m loving it!

People are super friendly here! I’d venture to say even more friendly than Texas (well, parts of Texas…) It’s so nice – someone will just start talking to you in line at the grocery store and our neighbors introduce themselves and everything!

The leaves change! Yeah! This is one of the plants in our front yard.

Things that make me worried

When people say, “The way your house is situated shouldn’t be too bad for the snow drifts.”

When people talk about the “heat wave” that’s come through – 80s and sunny… uh-oh

DIY projects already under our belt as new homeowners!

Changing the plug on the dryer from 4-prong to 3.

Raising the range we bought on craigslist with 2X4s so it will fit over the kitchen counter. (yea, those are brownies… yum)

Figuring out the range we bought on craigslist was configured for propane when we hooked it up to our gas (the new parts are on order). 

This is as far as the new range slides in (the house didn’t come with a range), but we like this one a lot anyway.

Painting the horribly dingy downstairs bathroom a bright white – it looks SO much better!

Spray painting the salvaged table leg our concrete table top sits on – it looks SO much better too!

Overall

As you can see, I’m still living in chaos. I have emerged from the sea of cardboard and discovered my storage solutions are minimal at best – I never bought furniture – why, when you don’t know what kind of space you’ll be living in next year? So, I might be building some shelves or a cabinet or two… we’ll see.

We’ve also been shopping around for the renovations we’ve planned – wood flooring, carpet, tile, cabinets, countertops, sinks, fixtures, and more. I’m amazed at how much some things cost (carpet) and pleased at others (tile on sale). We’re still planning, making sure everything will work out and work together.

In the meantime, here’s some pictures of the house coming together.

Moving to Rapid City

Actually, the word “moving” does not accurately describe our military moves. Rob asked me recently why I refer to our military moves as “PCS-s” around non-military folk so often. When I thought about it, an avid appreciator of diction and using precise language to express oneself, I had the answer…

We aren’t just “moving.” “Moving” denotes an election – a choice to change houses, jobs, cities, etc. I’ve moved plenty (especially those college years) and “moving” just doesn’t cut it when it comes to the event that is a “PCS.” Of course there’s always a choice in life… in this case it happens to be move or go to jail.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to complain about PCSing. I happen to love the adventure of new places and experiences. Plus, the fact that all my stuff is packed and moved for me makes it even nicer! I just want to be clear – I use the word PCS to describe a little more precisely the event we undertake. I love diction.

ANYWAY, this PCS began like any other… packers packing, movers moving, etc. We rented a U-Haul to move some of our more special items and the stuff we’d need when we got to the house (cleaning supplies, etc.) The trailer looked a little something like this (you’ve got to be crazy to think I’m leaving my potted plants!)

We took the route through Albuquerque, NM so as to have the privilege of visiting our super cool friends. Everything was going smoothly until this happened.

Yea, the transmission on the truck decided it had had enough. I guess climbing a vertical mile from Abilene pulling a fairly heavy trailer is no day at the spa.

This event occurred at approximately 5:47pm on a Friday afternoon. Our Droid phones paid for themselves with our being able to google information about mechanics and tow trucks and where in the world we were! God blessed us with a truly amazing mechanic who happened to be working on  a Friday after 5pm! Really, this guy is awesome! If you ever are broken down near Albuquerque, I HIGHLY recommend Don at East Mountain Auto and RV Repair! Seriously. We love him.

Don checked our transmission on Saturday morning and found parts of the transmission in the pan when he took it off. Uh oh. So… how to keep to the original plan of closing on the house MONDAY and all our stuff getting delivered MONDAY or else being sent to storage (ugh). Don actually suggested it (he’d had lots of experience with travelers breaking down climbing the New Mexican mountains) – renting a car! Of course!

So, after getting a bonus day hanging out with our friends, we rented a VERY fuel efficient Chevy Cobalt (seriously, we put 1,816 miles on it and filled up 5 times!) and drove the whole way to Rapid City.

We arrived Sunday night at midnight and woke up early to close on the house. Then, we immediately met the movers so they could unload. Then, we immediately began unpacking.

THEN, we drove BACK to Albuquerque on Tuesday (about 14 hours) and stayed some more bonus days with our friends until the transmission was repaired. Rob got a whole new one from the factory with a warranty and everything. Don’s prices are really good too! But even with good prices, all the money that we would have made moving our own stuff doesn’t pay for the total repair cost. wah-wah.

Thursday, we picked up the truck and trailer and began our trip BACK to Rapid City. We stopped the night in Denver and continued Friday the rest of the way. Saturday, we returned the U-Haul (a full 5 days late) and praise the Lord! the guy didn’t charge any extra days! Whew! PLUS, USAA will reimburse us the cost of the tow (because that kind of thing is included in our insurance and we didn’t know). Horaay!

Anyway, I’m currently drowning in a sea of cardboard trying to unpack and with each box having a conversation in my head that goes something like this:

Me: Where should I put this? I want everything to be organized…

Me: Seriously?? Just put it somewhere! You have to unpack everything anyway. You can rearrange later!

Me: But wouldn’t it be so nice if I didn’t have to rearrange later? If only I could find the perfect place for it now…

Rob: How come the mixer is still in the middle of the floor?

Me: Are you still wasting our time with this! Just put it somewhere! Anywhere! Do it. Do it now!

Me: Okay! Fine. Here. Are you happy now?

And it continues with the next box. I shall be rearranging for years.

And here’s some pics of our epic road trip…

New Mexico back roads

Colorado

 

And Wyoming at sunset

And South Dakota on the way BACK to New Mexico at sunrise

Where We’re Gonna Live

So, I don’t wanna sound like a traitor to Texas or anything, but Rapid City area is PRETTY!

It’s sandwiched between the Badlands (which aren’t that bad) and the Black Hills. Mount Rushmore is about 20 minutes away, the little towns around are really cute, and there’s different rallies all summer – we were there for Sturgis Bike Week, there’s also Corvettes, and many others. Very fun!

The Badlands

We stayed at our friend’s empty house before they moved in and saw LOTS of these bucks just walking around in the yards.

We drove out to Sturgis to check out Bike Week! There were 800,000 bikers in the areas around Sturgis. That actually doubled the population of the STATE!

We drove through the Black Hills with the bikers

We even saw Mount Rushmore! It faces east, so if you come to see it, you should go in the morning…

We drove my car up and flew back so that we could ride in one car when we moved. I love flying standby! The ticket printer at the counter was broken in Rapid City so when we were assigned seats on the plane, the counter guy came over and gave us these hand-written seat numbers! Hilarious!!

With Bike Week, there were lots of celebrities in town! And we saw Axel Rose at the airport!! We don’t have a photo though.

But we were really happy to get our hand-written standby seats!

House Hunting

Hi ho the merry oh, a House Hunting we go!

Our future home

So last week, er was it three weeks ago? Yikes, I don’t even know! I’m in turbo PCS mode, and it’s seriously cramping my style. But we drove up to Rapid City, SD to do some house hunting for the house that we will plan to live in for the next three years!! Three years!! That is the LONGEST we will have lived in ONE place since we got married! Yea, the loan application part where you have to write your addresses for the last three years was a little ridiculous – we had FIVE. Five.

ANYway, we looked for just two days before we decided to make an offer on TWO homes actually. Our first choice was a dramatic chalet style house on the side of a tall hill with views to swoon over… with a TON of work to be done to it. We had a beautiful vision of it all fixed up, but if you were an unimaginative buyer you would literally run from the three different shag carpets cut together to make a design on the floor in the bathroom, the gold painted shiny wallpaper, the magenta carpet that matched a magenta wall going up two stories… It was going to be GORGEOUS in my head! So we offered way lower than the asking price hoping for a miracle.

Our second choice was where God worked a little subtly. We thought it was fine and good. The backyard is huge (half acre) and there’s already a greenhouse (which is the first thing I wanted to put into our SD home) AND they accepted our first offer! Our reaction should have been to recognize our miracle, but we said, “okay, what about the house on the hill??” …God always has great stuff in mind for us!

The house we’re getting doesn’t REQUIRE work like the other one, and is so much better for us in lots of little ways – while it doesn’t have the wow factor, it has very good bones and the projects we want to do are much more manageable and less necessary.

Thus, we’ve been excitedly researching how to install….

radiant floor heating (since it will need a new furnace and water heater soon and the exhaust goes up through the wall I want to knock down),

wood floors in the living room (because it’s pretty and the floors will already be up anyway),

tile in the kitchen (same reason, plus think about warm toes in the winter… sigh),

new cabinets (while I want to knock down the wall to open the kitchen and built a prep area/breakfast bar, why not?),

concrete countertops (we’ve been practicing!),

and a large master bath (can anyone say steam room?)…

Don’t worry, we’re prepared to get into this life of chaos and do-it-yourself-ing and pretty excited about it, actually. Get ready for some hilarious (and hopefully not too depressing) blog posts about our do-it-yourself adventures. In the meantime, here’s some pics of our future home!

It’s a split level home. You enter onto the main level with living, dining and kitchen. Stairs go up one half floor to two bedrooms and bathroom. Stairs go down one half level to one bedroom, one bath, and a mudroom from the garage (we’ll turn it into a big bathroom). Stairs go down again to the basement with a fireplace, laundry, and space for a guest room. It’s like the basement is under the main floor and the two floors with bedrooms are on top of one another.

The wall is coming down and a breakfast bar is going up!

When you come to visit us (Mt Rushmore anyone?) you can stay on our rockin’ shag carpet!

Your choice of colors! There’s another one that’s brown beyond these two…

Fireplace in the basement – it can also warm the basement through those vents.    

Lower level bath that we want to enlarge (a little further down the to-do list)

Greenhouse!!!

Our backyard is LOVELY!

 

We’re very excited and looking forward to actually being able to make changes in a place we live.