Jeanne made a huge batch of Pinto Bean Soup & Double Cornbread Muffins to go with it.

The soup is delicious, thanks for the recipe Mom Grimes! Jeanne used a ham from the 1/4 of a local pig we got this winter, so it's not only especially good, but especially good-for-you!!!

Per usual, Jeanne added some kick to the muffins by adding some of her canned minced jalapenos! Not too hot, but just right!

New Stove Today!

Nick worked with Frank today getting some projects done, including taking out the old stove and putting in the new one.The stove (and recently a new microwave also) look beautiful!

Farewell to our beloved Carlotta

Here he was Jan 2008 out playing in the snow on the deck.

Carlotta passed away this morning in his sleep, poor baby. We miss him terribly. We love you little Carlotta!!!

Another home made cheese, Ricotta!

A simpler process than the mozzarella, Jeanne needed to use up some of our farm fresh milk and decided to make some ricotta.Heating up the milk.
Removing the curds from the whey.

Hanging the cheese to drain.

Left over whey! Jeanne's going to make several pizza doughs to freeze to use this good whey.

The Time Traveler's Wife

Jeanne heard about this book from one of the mothers in a class she is taking at CFEC with Lia. Both Jeanne & Frank read this book and were very moved by it, think it is such a unique book and highly recommend it.

The Time Traveler's Wife (2003) is Audrey Niffenegger's debut novel. It is an unconventional love story that centers on a man with a strange genetic disorder that causes him to unpredictably time travel, and his wife, an artist who has to cope with his frequent absences and dangerous experiences. The story is set in Chicago and South Haven, Michigan.

Plot summary - abreviated - because we don't want to tell you the ENTIRE story!

Told from the alternating perspectives of Clare and Henry, the novel tells the stories of Henry DeTamble (born 1963), a librarian at the Newberry Library in Chicago, and his wife, Clare Abshire (born 1971), an artist who makes paper sculptures. Henry has a rare genetic disorder, which comes to be known as Chrono-Displacement, that causes him to involuntarily travel through time. When 20-year-old Clare meets 28-year-old Henry at the Newberry Library in 1991 at the opening of the novel, he has never seen her before, although she has known him most of her life. Clare's past is still in Henry's future. Henry begins to experience the events in Clare's childhood at the same time that he experiences life with the adult Clare in the present.
Henry, who began time traveling at age five, is unable to control his time traveling: when he leaves, where he goes, or how long his trip will last. His destinations are tied to his subconscious, as Henry most often travels to places and times related to his own history. Certain stimuli such as stress or the flickering images on a television can trigger Henry's time traveling, an experience described as similar to epilepsy or a panic attack. He runs as a way of keeping calm and remaining in the present. Henry cannot take anything with him into the future or the past, always arriving naked and having to struggle to find clothing, shelter, and food. He amasses a number of survival skills including pickpocketing, lock-picking, and fighting skills. He learns many of these skills from older versions of himself.

Henry frequently travels to Clare's childhood and adolescence in South Haven, Michigan, beginning in 1977 when she is six years old. On one of his early visits, Henry gives her a list of the visits he will make; she writes these dates into a diary so she can expect his visits and provide him with clothes and food. During one of Henry's visits, he inadvertently reveals that he and Clare will be married in the future. Over time, they develop a close relationship.

Look for the film adaptation to come out in August 2009.

2 Family Update

Here is a picture of the new walk-way Frank is installing at the 2 Family. This leads from the drive way to the front step. The kitchen is coming along beautifully but Frank doesn't want any pictures posted until it's all finished. Jeanne wants to put them up here but Frank made her promise not to!
Did we post this before? It's the stained glass window that Frank installed right inside the foyer of the 2 family. Beautiful (and nice and private!).

Easter Sunday

We all went to Eden Park for Easter. We hiked around the "pond" and up to Krohn Conservatory. It was an absolutely BEAUTIFUL (Easter) day! Frank LOVES the bonsai trees! This one is especially surreal! It looks like a mini forest!

Here is Frank and Lia at Longworth's - we stopped for a beer and a bite to eat.

Another stained glass window!

Update: Sunday, April 12th
The window was finished yesterday and is now installed. This shows you the existing window on the top and the new one (smaller version) below.

Original Post: Thursday, April 1

Jeanne is excited to be working on her stained glass again. Above is a picture of the glass that she just started cutting yesterday. Athough it's all cut, now comes the grinding, the foiling and then the soldering. Frank hopes it's complete by Saturday when our English friends come into town but Jeanne doesn't think she'll have it quite finished by then. You can see a picture of the existing window (however, a larger version). So she scaled back the design to fit a new, smaller one. We were unable to find an exact match for the redish glass and the border, but we're excited to have it complete and hanging up in the 2 family's first floor Living Room.

Gorman Heritage Farm's Shearing Festival

Jeanne & Lia went to Gorman Heritage Farm for the Shearing Festival today. Luckily, it was the one day that was beautiful and warm, sandwiched in - in between wet (and soon to be cold) Spring Ohio weather. They had a great time at the farm and enjoyed the animals and their very good friends.
Here's the shearing demonstration. Apparently these sheep don't mind this at all. However, as nursing mothers, they do mind being away from their babies. The gentleman explained that earlier they had shorn a mother and put her back with her twins and they were confused as to who she was, until they caught her scent, and then all were happy again. We learned that the wool from these sheep is not the fine kind you use for knitting, but rather used as a type of padding. The Severanace brothers: (in order) Emory, Oliver & Owen. They have another sibling on the way but won't know if it's another brother or a baby sister until the baby arrives. Here's Melissa (with child) and David. They had a lot to do to keep up with these 3 boys!
And here's Dusty with Natalie. Tina wasn't able to make it because she was on call.
Here we saw the darker pig just step right on top of the lighter one, waking it up and quite frankly, pissing it off.

Here's a baby lamb. These little ones were so sprightly it was hard to get a shot of them standing still!

Here's Lia looking at the goats with Mommy.

Diane and her daughter Katy enjoying all of the animals.

Dave helping Andy up on his shoulders to view the shearing.

It was a great day at Gorman! They are now selling lamb & pork (although pork maybe from a different farm?). They do sell their chickens and eggs. Jeanne came home with a pound of ground lamb to make us Greek meatballs this week for dinner!

Jeanne made homemade butter!

Because our daughter is soon to be eating butter, Jeanne wanted to get some raw butter from our milk farm this weekend. However, the butter wasn't going to be ready until later in the week, and that didn't jive with the milk-pick-up, so she decided to make butter herself. Step by step process....had to set the cream out to reach 62°. We actually had to crank up the heat in the house and put the jars on the register to accomplish this.
Here is an open jar, you can see the yellow butter has formed. This took QUITE a bit of shaking, and Frank helped a little when he stopped home.
Another picture of the 1/2 gallon mason jar, see the butter?

Here is the butter draining on cheese cloth- the liquid (aka buttermilk) - below catching in a pot. See the empty jars on the left. To shake 2 quarts Jeanne split the cream into 3 jars, 2 qt and one 1/2 gallon.

2 quarts of heavy cream provided us with about 3 cups of buttermilk. Now to find something to use all the buttermilk with....

This is only 1/2 of the butter that was made. Jeanne added salt at the end after rinsing and "kneading" the butter to remove all of the liquid. It's delicious and fresh and hormone free! Lia will get her first taste of healthy butter!