Kristen in the Country

I was listening to an interview with Garth Brooks once and he told a story about his daughters I've never forgotten.  Growing up, even after he was famous and wealthy, his three girls shared a bedroom and they hated it.  They would grumble and complain and (so the story went) whine about living in a big ol' house with plenty of bedrooms but still being made to share.  As they got older, moved out, and began their own lives, they each independently came to him and thanked him for making them share that space as children.  He said as much as they voiced their displeasure over the sleeping arrangements, they were so glad for the memories they made staying up after bedtime talking, laughing, and being sisters in the same space.   (I shared a room for a few years with my younger sister and I do not have those same sentiments.  Sometimes opposites don't attract, ya know?) The point of my rambling is our three girls share a bedroom.  It happened by accid...

One lesson I've learned in the past two months is country = critters.  For fifteen years, I've heard stories about the creatures who have made their way inside, from the laid-back rat who, in 1990, casually sat atop the bread cart eating bread until Rob's grandpa killed it with a tennis racket, to the bat that my mother-in-law hit with a pillow and trapped underneath a trashcan before chucking it out her bedroom window onto the roof in the wee hours of the morning.  I've heard the staccato sound of little chipmunk claws skittering between the walls and had the distinct pleasure (insert eye roll) of smelling them through the plaster as their little bodies decomposed.  Of course, I wasn't A RESIDENT of the house when those events happened like I am now.  At the very least, we will have mice.  They're probably already casing the joint after smelling all the fruit loops my kids manage to drop and hide beneath the sofa.  I repeat: WE WILL HAVE MICE.  I k...

I made the kids go outside to play and have just enough time to tell you about a food source we have here on the land in the hypothetical event the grid goes down (or something). We have several black walnut trees and decided to harvest, shuck (shell? skin?), dry, and crack open some nutty goodness. Side note: Before we did this, we watched a couple videos, and from our detailed YouTubery research, we discovered that once you crack open the hard, inner shell, you have access to the "nut meat."  As a result, I have vowed to henceforth refer to walnuts as "nut meat" whenever possible.  Moving on. Wait, just kidding.   Walnuts drop their NUT MEAT in green tennis ball-sized orbs on the ground during the fall.  Once that happens, you have three options: Break an ankle on them while walking through your yard, harvest them off the ground to shell (shuck? skin? WHO KNOWS) for eating, OR trick your friends into picking them up so you don't have to, which is what ...