Feeding the Locusts

When my four dearest friends and our cumulative 24 children get together for tea
or a workday or a family “get-together”, we lovingly refer to our children as
“the locusts.”
It seems that no matter how much food we bring,
they manage to devour all of it before the end of the day.
I am always on the lookout for economical and yummy ways to feed a crowd,
and I am always delighted to share my findings.
This first one is from Nancy, she has made it with elk roast, or hamburger; I have used elk, deer and beef.
I prefer it done with roasts, but if you don’t have access to our economical elk and deer, hamburger is quite tasty too!!

McAninch Meat Filling

6 lbs. meat
I bunch celery
1 green pepper
3 medium onions
1 Tbsp. salt
1 tsp pepper
1 c. catsup
3 Tbsp bbq sauce
1 Tbsp Worchester
1 ½ c water
1 tsp chili powder

Cook all ingredients in a slow cooker, electric roaster, crock-pot, or larger covered dish at 325 degrees for 8 or more hours. Serve on hamburger buns. This smells incredible and tastes even better!! Feeds a lot of people, maybe 20 or so. Thanks Nancy!


Ham And Potato Crock Pot Dinner

I am not a real fan of canned creamed soups, so I usually make my own, but these days of pregnancy, with less energy and more to do, I have broken down and enjoyed the convenience. It is still wonderfully good, even to my finicky taste.

1 boneless ham, the precooked kind, sliced
20 medium potaotoes, peeled and sliced
4 onions, sliced
2 or 3 cups of grated chedder cheese
2 10 oz cans of cream of mushroom soup, or the equivalent homemade sauce
2 quarts green beans, drained

Layer ham, potato, onions, green beans in xl crock pot or roaster, or xl covered baking dish. Sprinkle cheese over, pour soup on top. Cook at 325 degrees, 6 hours or more. You could half this recipe if you are only feeding a dozen or so people, but I think this is good for around 20, and I will blame my pregnant brain for not remembering just how many.


No Fail Bread
This is a very simple recipe given to me by an older lady in our church. She says this was her mother’s recipe, which would date it in the early 1920’s. They are undoubtedly the best, most beautiful rolls I have ever had. My dear friend Tiffany has taken the risk out of bread baking by teaching me to sponge my dough. Since I started doing that, I have never had heavy, or “unrisen” bread.

4 cups very warm water
2 T. yeast
4 tsp salt
4 T. sugar
4 T. oil

Mix these together in a large bowl. Cover and let stand 10 minutes. This is sponging your yeast. The yeast will activate and get foamy. Add in 2 cups of flour at a time until you have used 10 cups of white flour. Knead for several minutes. Turn into a large greased bowl, cover with a light cloth, and let rise 45 minutes. Divide dough in half, then in half again, keep dividing in halves until you have 32 equal pieces. Use a little flour to dust the pieces and keep them from sticking to you. Shape into rolls and put on baking sheet, or, flatten each piece with the palm of your hand for a bun shape, then put on baking sheet. Cover with a light cloth, Let rise for another 45 minutes. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. I like to use ½ freshly ground whole wheat in my rolls. If you do this, the amount of flour will vary. Try adding one cup of white flour and then one cup of wheat flour, mix, and do this again until your dough is only slightly sticky. Adding too much flour will make your loaf heavy, so leave it on the sticky side. Bread is such a great, cheap way to make a meal go further, and nearly everyone loves homemade bread. For a children’s snack, we like to brush the almost done rolls with butter and sprinkle cinnamon-sugar over the tops. They will be gone before they cool. We did this for our Vacation Bible School snack for the last two years with no complaints. Kids just love homemade bread!

Enjoy!!!! Also, here are a couple of current pictures of the house. With our summer ministry schedule we haven't worked on the Lodge for about 1 1/2 months :-(

Here's the Answer!!

Now for the answers you've been waiting for. Let's see how you did. Did you guess that the first picture in our last post is a White Pine? Pines are typically identifiable by the long slender needles that resemble a bottle brush or chimney brush. We also have Ponderosa Pine (the tallest of the trees in the photo to the left), and Lodgepole Pine (tall slender trees in the photo below).

The second picture in our last post is the needles of a White Fir, also known as a Grand Fir. A White Fir is identifiable by the short flat needles that are set in in two rows on the branch.

Our third photo is of a Red Fir. Look closely at the photos of the White Fir and the Red Fir. They are very similar. Both have short dark green needles. However, the Red Fir needles are set all around the branch like a little bottle brush or the tail hairs on a Pack Rat ;-).

Guess that Tree

We live in the woods, so do critters that eat little kids :-). Last fall, a neighbor's horse was attacked by a cougar. We were not terribly surprised, but it did make me consider the very dense undergrowth of the forest around our house. I resolved to remove as much preditor cover as possible as soon as possible. We also talked about getting a herding dog to watch over the smaller children. The first of May, it finally stopped snowing, and we got to work at the property clearing the woods of smaller trees and brush, and selecting which trees to keep and which to cut. The kids piled the smaller trees, brush and limbs while I cut things down. It really quenches the destructive gene I have in my body :-)!! We have a large percentage of white fir, which is not really good for anything, so we are removing alot of them. We want to keep the white pine, they are the most valuable trees we have. The ponderosa pine get very large and are pretty, we will keep most of them. There are also red fir, a good mill log, and lodgepole pine as well. The house is made of lodgepole, they are very abundant on our property. Someday we hope the market value will go back up, and we will take a few truck loads off to the mill.

In the meantime, we have literally tons of firewood. Our goal is to make the 5 acres around the house very park-like, with little undergrowth, sparse trees, and ultimately, a much greater view base for keeping an eye on our little blessings running around, lest they become cougar bait.

Each of these photos represent a type of tree that we have on our property. One is a White Fir, one is a White Pine, and one is a Red Fir. Can you identify which is which? The answers will be in the next post!! Happy tree identifying!!

Long Awaited Update - Snow, Snow and more Snow

After getting the roof on and getting most of the windows and doors in and the gable ends framed and enclosed we were hoping to get more work done during the winter months. That has not been the case. Just getting out to the lodge has proved difficult at times. We had over a week of subzero temperatures and at the beginning of that time we discovered that a small digital display on our charge controller had drawn the battery charge down to such a point that the batteries froze. We are still not sure how many batteries are ruined. During that time I (Brian) had resurrected my 4WD truck and was busting through the snow drifts trying to get in and out to keep a propane heater running in order to thaw the batteries. On one of the trips I got stuck and as I was working my truck pretty hard to get out I saw a flash in my mirror and looked to see my truck in flames. It was a complete loss but thank God I was able to get out and was not injured.

We have not accomplished as much on the lodge as we had hoped we would this winter, mostly due to a very busy winter schedule and some due to the weather. We did get all the windows in that we had holes cut for. the walls are insulated and we did get about 2/3rds of the outside chinked before it got too cold for the chinking. We also got two french doors installed. We are anticipating getting started again the first part of March, Lord willing.

What we have learned through these last few months is that this house belongs to the Lord and its finish date is in His hands. We will work on it as He provides the time and the finances; our job is to be faithful and patient!!