We have a website

The website is up... and it is a work in progress!

www.fruitofthefungi.com

Check it out and let me know what you think!

Asparagus with Blue Cheese and Chive Vinaigrette

Here is a yummy recipe I wanted to share from a friend (it is super yummy)!

Asparagus with Blue Cheese and Chive Vinaigrette

Ingredients
1/2 lb. asparagus spears
1 tsp. red wine vinegar
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp crumbled blue cheese (or feta)
1 Tbsp minced chives
freshly ground pepper

Snap ends off asparagus. Fill medium skillet with 1 inch water and bring to boil. Add asparagus in single layer and cook 8 to 10 minutes or until tender. Drain well and arrange on serving plates.
Stir together vinegar and oil in small bowl. Add cheese and chives and mix well. Pour over hot asparagus. Season to taste with pepper.

You can also roast the asparagus and put the blue cheese on it while hot from the oven!

...For the Love of Mushrooms

Well... life is busy, but then again isn't it busy for all of us? KC and I are working on getting a website off the ground this summer and I'm going to work on maintaining this blog with stories, pictures, recipes, etc. etc. from our farm! I wanted to start off by showing a couple pics of the amazing mushrooms that are growing! I am so thankful that all the hard work that went into plugging the logs is paying off. We will have mushrooms available on Saturdays at the Hamilton Farmer's Market. We look forward to seeing you there.

So Funny!

Hey there! These videos are HILARIOUS! I had to share them with you...



'12 Days of Christmas'



'Sitcom Medley'

It reminded me of a group at Binghamton when KC and I were there... Enjoy the season!

Prince Charming

Prince Charming and his trusty steed...

It's amazing how much like a princess Cayna is... Of course, I've never actually met a true princess, but the image I've created in my mind via books, movies and the Royal Family, is what I see in Cayna in her twirly skirts, painted fingernails, VERY independent and outspoken nature and her zeal for all things pretty and pink... In fact, it seems like a lot of girls her age love the idea of being one. And all that surrounds us (i.e. media and advertising) encourages little girls to be a princess (they have a whole aisle devoted to it at every major store like Walmart and Target).


Being a princess isn't bad. It can be frustrating for a mom that has NEVER been like that (my mom will vouch for that). In fact, I'm working on my compassion and patience in this department - especially when Cayna is in a full-fledged princess tantrum. But I have a sensitive side to me as well - A princess isn't known just for the way she looks and acts... But also of what she dreams about. What is the one thing every princess dreams of? Her Prince Charming... of course. And in this department, I am just as 'princess' like as the next girl. And what do we look for in Prince Charming? Tall (or at least taller than ourselves), dark and handsome? Yeah... and in today's world, we add intelligent, romantic, sensitive, strong... pretty much, he needs to be perfect (just like the movies, right)?

Well, perfect just isn't. I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but I made an observation one night while reading Cinderella to Cayna for probably the billionth time. Prince Charming has NOTHING to do with saving her. The Grand Duke has to charge off on his horse to find the girl with the glass slipper and the fairy godmother and the mice are the ones that actually rescue her. What's up with that? If you like the Cinderella story, I prefer the version called 'Ever After,' with Drew Barrymore. The Prince has to work a little harder.

We are reading Wild at Heart for Sunday School right now. It basically talks about the wild side of man. He isn't meant to be pent up in an office all day and for many little boys and men, our society is taking away their wild side... almost feminizing them - a man seeks adventure and the wilderness. That doesn't mean he goes hunting, kills things, etc. No, it means that as a child, he made guns out of sticks, built forts, scared little girls with snakes and frogs, and sailed off on a grand adventure while getting lost in the woods at Grandma & Grandpa's house. And as a man, he still seeks adventure - whether it's playing sports, hanging out with his buddies, camping with his kids, following his passion. Every man's adventure is different. And on that adventure, what is one of the main goals for the man? To save his damsel in distress - to rescue her from the evil stepmother or dragon. The book says that this is a desire of the man's heart - to save the woman he loves! Girls, we might not get a castle, but if we look closely, we can see how he fights for us in the little things he does (and we sometimes want to join him in the adventure).

And even those of you that deny it... you know it's true.

KC truly is my Prince Charming. For 10 years, when people ask me how KC and I got together, I would tell them that we met in college. I pursued him, etc, etc. I did send the first email letting him know I was interested in him...

Well, I lied! And sadly, I just figured it out! The last few days, KC and I have been talking about when we met, things in our past, and so on. And as always, I said 'well, it was me that started it' and he would say 'well, I said 'I love you first'.' All in good fun, of course. Then we started talking about what really prompted the relationship. And guess what - it wasn't me. It was KC. He and I were volunteering with a High School Christian group called Young Life. We had a leadership meeting (we were in different areas, but the leadership met all together when we could). I was talking with my friends and talking about having to do my laundry after the meeting and KC out of nowhere says - 'you can do it at my house.' I had NEVER talked to this kid. I must tell you that all the girls were in love with KC. I had heard an awful lot about him (they talked too much actually - they made him out to be too good to be true). Anyway, being in college and having to pay for my laundry - I wasn't going to turn down saving money! I said sure and my friend Heather Kinney and I went over to his house to do laundry. And most of you might think I'm crazy, but I knew I would marry KC that night.

So, why the Prince Charming thing? Well, we don't normally have dragons or evil stepmothers to fight off, but we do have life. My life was not headed in the best direction before I met him. And I had a lot of bad things that had happened to me and I didn't store a lot of faith that I'd find someone like him (He was WAY too good for me)... not one that would want to take a chance with me or marry me. But he did. I still don't always understand that. He didn't know he would be with me forever when he asked me to do laundry at his house, but I truly believe with all that I am that the Holy Spirit prompted him to step out and take a chance. I can even picture him with a knight's helmet and sword fending off the things that were attacking my life.

So, he might not have swept me off my feet with a white stallion and a happy ever after, but he did offer love, hope and a chance to start over following the sunset in the West. And he continually shows me I am his princess.

We all have the opportunity to be a part of the royal family to the King of Kings; it just depends on how much we are willing to open our hearts and let go of the past and our misconceptions.

And as I work on my compassion and patience... Cayna really is teaching me that it is ok to be a princess (when used in the right context) and I admit that I enjoy her princess ways sometimes...
Who is her Prince Charming? Daddy and Jesus.

Back to life on the farm...

I love owning a home that is 168 years old... I really do. I enjoy the history that we have found about the families that once lived here. And I love that over the coming years, we will be able to restore the house and add our own history to it. But, there are a couple things I do not like about an old house...

1. I am not Norm Abram (TOH)
2. There are no straight corners in the entire house!
3. When you need to fix something, it always takes a lot more time to get to the problem than it does to actually fix it.
4. Everything is pieced together and never the same material throughout (especially plumbing).
5. When one things breaks, you find that as you take it apart... that it was broken many times before, never fixed the right way and now a complete mess and will cost much more to fix than first anticipated.

So, what is my point?

I put the kids to bed this evening and went downstairs to return a phonecall. As I was on the phone, I was standing in the living room and I heard dripping water... a lot of dripping water. I turned around and by the door to the office, there was a waterfall flowing from the ceiling. I quickly grabbed towels and went upstairs to the bathroom. There was water completely saturating the floor and a large pool forming around the toilet. I tried shutting the water off, but when I turned the shut-off valve, it started flowing from down by that valve. Uh... so, I closed the shut-off valve half way to slow the toilet fill-up as much as I could. I went downstairs to grab the Plumbing book from Home Depot and sat at the computer trying to figure out my best plan of action. I knew that the valve in the back of the toilet was shot as well, but wasn't sure how to get it all to stop flooding, dripping and making a mess. I couldn't figure it out so I called our neighbor. His name is Bob - to me and my family, he is 'Bob the Builder'. He generously came up here to help me get all the water turned off to upstairs and try and figure out the problem(s).

Well... we still heard water flowing, very actively, I might add. But there wasn't any water flowing through the walls, floors or in the basement. And the well wasn't drawing water either. Stumped. It really sounded like a pipe burst and was flowing into the wall behind the toilet. Well, after walking around the house, we went back upstairs. We eventually figured out that the valve that shuts the water off was not sealing itself properly. So, it might appear to be off, but it wasn't. It was allowing a little bit of water to continue flowing into the toilet. I know, you plumbers out there are thinking did you check that? We did and there weren't even any ripples in the water in the bowl or the back to suggest water was flowing in. That is the miniscule amount that was still leaking in. So, why did the water flow sound so loud and in great quantity?

Well, I am happy we stopped the flooding. And the good news is, I don't have to break a wall to figure out the piping sytem. The bad news is we have to replace the pump valve and the shut-off valve (and hopefully, it is just a washer in the shut-off valve).

Back to my list... 1. I wish I had more knowledge about fixing the house (like Norm). 2. It didn't matter about straight corners in this instance. 3. It definitely took more time to figure out what the problem was than it will take to actually replace the valves. 4. Since the original construction was done, it has been patched up many times and not all of the repairs were necessarily the best way to do it...the repairs just fixed the problem 'for now'. 5. And lastly, it wasn't just one valve... it ended up being 2.
I am thankful for these problems. They are small in the whole scheme of things and are funny at times. There's no point losing sleep over it (at one point in my life, I might have). I'm thankful that we have great neighbors. God put em' there for a reason. And we have learned so much since we bought this old farmhouse. I'll take it broken, pieced together and loved by many. And most important, it's ours. I love old houses!

Never Say Goodbye - Day 7 & 8

A black bug with his *hiney* in the air

View from above...

LaLa... She had a litter of puppies a week before we arrived... She didn't like most people, but she and I were good friends. I made a promise to myself that I would hold one of her puppies by the end of the week. They were SO cute!

I was fascinated by the shoes I found on the ground, out in the desert...this is my favorite.

Our last day... we all had tasks that we wanted to complete before packing up - collecting scrap wood from the work sites and dropping them into random piles outside the Colonia (for the people to use as firewood); clean and organize the few medical supplies Resplandor De Vida has available; nail down part of the roof and add edges to keep the wind from blowing the new roof off the new building (the wind can be vicious); get the children's bed frames ready to be installed in the completed building; say goodbye to Hortencia and the kitchen crew; clean up the kitchen, the dining hall, the bathrooms and our sleeping quarters; go to New Mexico and build shelves (KC's job for the day); take one last walk around the compound -

All week, I had been thinking that God was working on something in my heart when it came to the surroundings I was in. Not just the people or the mission we had come to complete. But the desert itself. I have already mentioned that it gave my soul such peace to be able to see the mountains again. Every morning I would look at them and smile and thank God for His awesome power. It was also bittersweet because I knew I would miss the mountains all over again when we left. All week, I took pictures of lizards, bugs, flowers, plants, etc... I took them mostly to show Cory all the fun and interesting creatures in Mexico. But this last day, on my last walk, I really began to take notice of every plant, every smell. I picked some of the sage brush and held it to my nose (I brought some home...tea, anyone?). I saw the beauty that God created, even in the dry, dusty desert. God misses nothing from the blue sky to the black bug with his hiney in the air! It's amazing what happens when you take a few minutes to really enjoy your surroundings... I kept asking the question... do I really appreciate my surroundings at home?

Diana, our Pastor's wife never says good-bye. She says that term is final and we aren't really saying good bye when we leave...

I don't feel as if I have said good-bye to Mexico. On the contrary, it feels like a beginning. Neither KC nor I know where our trip will lead, but we are open to the millions of possibilities. One of the main things we observed while in Mexico is that lack of resources and training for agricultural prospects. What I mean by that is there is a lot of potential to plant seeds (literally) among Resplandor De Vida and the Colonia. They live in a desert, but they experience a monsoon season with great potential for collecting rain water... Some of the people also have access to manure from farm animals. We live in one of the strongest agricultural areas in the country... Coincidence? I think not! And I could go on and on about the possibilities!

I don't know if this will be the last entry about this Mexico trip (I doubt it, actually). I'm trying to collect all my thoughts on things I've learned, things I'd like to do after the trip and because of the trip, etc... I hope you have enjoyed all the stories. It was the most amazing trip I have ever taken. I am so thankful to each and every one of you that supported us, prayed for us and were there with us! If you are interested in seeing the many, many, MANY pictures from our trip, I created a site with all the pictures taken by everyone on the team. Enjoy!

http://www.harvesthandsmexico2008.shutterfly.com