Monday, January 31, 2011

Things We've Done Lately

This is the tackiest cake I've ever made, but I think it also brought the recipient more joy than any floral masterpiece I've executed.
Rachel's boyfriend Dave loves PBR, so when I decided to make him a cake for his birthday I knew I had to somehow incorporate the famous red white and blue can into the theme.
I even etched the top of a can into some tinfoil for the top. Because I like to keep things official. When I walked into the party carrying that cake, Dave's face was like a kid on Christmas morning. "For me?!?!?!"
Yes Dave. For you.
Aaron's work on the guest house for my parents continues. Aaron and Matteas are heading to the river after a long work day.
This is just a tiny piece of my parents' property. The boys were "helping" my mom clear the back field of branches to prepare it for mowing, which is pretty much my mom's favorite thing to do.
Sometimes I think I should have been a farmer's wife. I love working outside, I love dirt, and in the words of my sister Moira, I love moving heavy objects. There's something vital and satisfying about changing the landscape of a field, and I think I understand how my mom feels about their acreage. Maybe it's the Irish/Scottish blood in me, but I feel like I can hear a piece of land speaking to me, and it's saying "Subdue me." And once you've done that, you can plant things on your subdued piece of land and wrestle food from the loins of the earth, make edible things grow where there used to be bramble and weeds. I also really like the working side-by-side aspect; the house Aaron is building is a literal stone's throw(or hearty shout) from the field I was working in(read: subduing with my labor), and even though we were doing separate work it felt like we spent the day together. He was building a guest house, I was clearing branches. And when I say branches, I mean whole branches, not some lady-like game of pick-up sticks. We've had some crazy wind storms this winter, and whole limbs were ripped from some of my parents' many trees. Whole limbs are not good for John Deere mowers, so my mom and I worked to clear the field so she could mow to her heart's content. It takes a lot of mowing to content my mother's heart. The spot on her heart designated to Mowing Satisfaction takes up a large part of her cardiac landscape, and I was not about to come between her and Ultimate Mowing Satisfaction. We worked together to clear a large enough section to get her started, then she began mowing while I scrambled to clear another section before she was finished mowing the already-cleared part. Jack and Matteas took turns riding along with her while I ran and hauled like a beaver preparing for winter, and at the end of the day we were all tired, filthy, and thoroughly pleased with our efforts. I meant to take pictures of the enormous branch piles we'd made, but it was dark and cold and I was hungry from all the subduing, so we headed inside for a feast of slow-roasted pork shoulder. I will share the recipe shortly, although I should tell you in advance that it is a meal best eaten after some serious Manual labor. It's Hungry Man Food, not like those sad TV dinners meant to replace the cooking of a sturdy farm wife, but the kind of food that can satisfy the appetite of a man who is hungry in the way only a hard-working, hand-saw-wielding, there-is-a-structure-here-where-there-was-only-grass -because-of-the-work-of-my-Man-Hands type of man can be hungry. It's not the sort of meal I'd recommend after a day of light housework. Unless your idea of 'light housework' involves building an actual house or moving heavy objects.

1 comment:

Kayleen said...

Cool Cake. Do you listen to country music? Have you heard the "Toes in the Water" song? He says, "Not a worry in the world, a PBR on the way, life is good today, life is good."

Anyway - obviously Pabst Blue Ribbon reminds me of that song.

(if you don't listen to country - I truly hope you are not offended that your blog post reminds me of a country song :)