Restoring My Faith in Humanity

Though this has been a crazy time at work, hence my continued absence on here, I absolutely had to steal a couple of minutes to write about this.

As you may recall, I work in an institution of higher education.  Last week a student experienced an unfortunate experience through no fault of her own resulting in her schedule being deleted.  I helped her out in restoring this schedule, which included coordinating with several different offices.  A lot of jumping through hoops, but It’s what we would do for any student who had this experience.  Most students’ barely even say thank you, so when she thanked me very nicely and hung up the phone after our third or fourth phone call, I didn’t think anything about it and went on with my work.

5 or 6 days later, on the second day of the term, the student came to my office and gave me a beautiful bouquet of yellow roses along with her sincerest thanks for helping her.   I was practically in tears!  No one thanks our office – we are habitually abused by students, faculty, staff, parents, and more.  I can’t even express how grateful I was for the simple smile and thank you.  The roses were just over the top kind of her.

(First day)

It’s those little moments that help restore our knowledge that we aren’t in fact the mean people that our jobs sometimes require.  And more, it’s those little kindnesses that remind us to have a little faith in humanity – there really are kind and conscientious people in the world! J

(And now they have opened up!  What a beautiful site to see each morning this week!)

A Dessert Love Affair

I admit it.  I have a love affair with Carrot Cake.  But sometimes I rush headlong into cooking before checking my ingredients supply. 

The first time I made carrot cake this way was a simple accident.  I was dead set to make a carrot cake and feeling confident that my pantry would always have enough flour considering how much I like to bake did not look before I started shredding carrots and cracking eggs.  When I reached for the flour, I found my canister only had about a cup of the standard unbleached flour that was a staple.  I drummed my fingers and considered my options.  An hour round trip drive to town and back to buy a $3 bag of flour, or wing it: Of course I chose to wing it! 

All Time Best Carrot Cake

4 Large eggs

1 ¼ cup applesauce with cinnamon

2 cups of white sugar

2 tsp. vanilla extract

2 cups of oat flour

2 tsp. baking soda

2 tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. salt

2 tsp. ground cinnamon

3 ½ cups finely grated carrots

1 chopped pecans

Preheat the oven to 350 F, and spray a thin layer of Baker’s Secret in a 9x13 baking dish.  (Or grease and flour liberally.) 

In a large bowl, beat together the eggs, applesauce, sugar and vanilla.  Mix in the oat flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.  Fold in carrots and nuts then pour into the prepared baking dish.  Bake for approximately 45 – 55 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. 

Summertime

As far as Texas summers go, this one isn't too bad.  We've seen record highs in some years, and record number of days over 100 in others.  This one is just an average summer. 

Only about a month so far with temperatures averaging over 100, and not many more weeks of it to go before we are back down in the nineties.  Mornings are becoming a pleasure again, rather than waking up to a barn already 90 degrees inside, and milking in a 110 degree barn of an evening.

With the coming period of cooler temperatures, my thoughts turn to what we need to accomplish with the cooler weather. 

We need to re-hang a gate, and we need to do a little project building outside. In October, we should plant a few shrubs and put in a lightweight fence around them so the dogs won't dig them back up (like they did my photinias!) 

Dreams of cooler weather do make me smile!

Never Ending

That beautiful and fruitful pear tree seems to be on a never ending spree of production. We have put up enough pear butter to see us through the next year, and still this little tree that is now devoid of leaves thanks to the grasshoppers keeps on going with the pears.

Well... mostly.  All except one side where the donkeys and goats can reach over the fence has pears.  That side is now as devoid of pears as the entire tree is of leaves, thanks to the diligent efforts of our livestock!  They have done quite a number on the fence itself too, to get to the deliciously tart little pears just a tad too far away.

It's ok - we needed to reset that post anyway, right? :-)  As for the rest of the pears... we have a friend who is a chef.  He's asked for some.  I think he'll get plenty!

Relax!

Even I remember sometimes that it's good to relax.  Jackson and I said the heck with the laundry, we're having a book and a glass of wine!

Hot and Sweaty

It's hot. It's sticky. It's sweaty. It's grimy. 

Lately, when I am in the barn of an evening to milk I have been taking a photo of the barn thermometer since we are in the heat of summer.  Perhaps I'm a little bit of a masochist since I find it kind of fun to see what we are going through documented like this.

Last night it was 112 or 113.  I'm not 100% sure which because within seconds the sweat was rolling down my flesh in rivers as well as dripping into my eyes.  My clothes were soaked and I was a little bit tremble-y. 

This is Texas, and it's going to be hot in the summer and that's really O.K.  However, when it's this HOT. SWEATY. and GRITTY. one tends to question their own sanity.  I hadn't even really *done* anything and I had already sweat through my jeans. What I wanted was to go up to the deck and strip off, then douse myself head to toe with the hose.  What I did was feed animals then sit there in the sweltering heat of the barn and milk a goat.

There have been times in winter when we were carrying buckets of warm honey water out of the house to the barn to ensure sure everyone was hydrating, and keeping their electrolytes up.  There were other bitter cold days where the goats flinched from my frozen hands when I touched their teats, and I took great pleasure in warming my hands on them. What I wanted was to sit in front of a fire and sip hot tea. 

Those aren't things you want to have to do, but you do them. 

So why do we do it?  Maybe it's because we need that earthiness to our lives that we lack in our brick buildings and air conditioned offices.  Perhaps it's partly because it IS crazy to take all of this on, and we need a little bit of crazy in our lives.  More than likely it is in largest part due to our need for simple, honest labor that benefits our lives, and hopefully a few other lives too. 

It's a much more primal challenge than keeping up on paperwork, and it feels like what we do is of value.  The price includes little things like not going out to a late party because we are needed at home, in addition to sweating buckets in the summer or sticking hands in icy winter trough water.

However, nothing beats the sense of satisfaction at the end of the evening chores when we sit in the sunshine and feel the sweat run down our backs and a light breeze tease us, nor will anything beat the sweet nuzzling of our animals because we are their providers and knowing that what we do matters.