You’ve got mail.

Remember the Mailbox?  I mean that metallic can with a door, stuck up on some post. It is usually found along a town road, at the end of a driveway, at least in the rural town that I grew up in. The mailbox is one of my favorite places in the yard. Although, no, it’s not a feature begging for exhibit in prominent Landscape Architecture magazines. It is just a functional item.

My mailbox is a dented gray can on a 2” pipe stuck in a tubular shaped base of concrete. It’s not even a permanent feature. The snow plow, bored high school students travelling on our lane, and even an occasional falling branch from the big oak trees spread out overhead, have endeavored to reposition it. It is just a plain, ugly thing, and yet it is a portal. Every day things are deposited in that can, things for me, Tracy, the kids, the current resident, or postal patron. And every day, I look forward to pulling up to the mailbox, in my truck, as I arrive home from work, to see if there are any goodies in there for me.

Yes Folks….Goodies. I love mail. I’m sure that’s not too much of a surprise to those of you, my friends, who know me and to whom I shoot off various E-mails, letters, notes, chats, tweets and pokes to on a regular basis. Here, though I am talking about mailbox mail. The tangible stuff. Stuff I can read, no matter whether I’m in the truck, sitting at the fire pit, sitting on the couch or laying in bed. Now maybe I’m not talking about the mail that says I owe $400 for an oil delivery or that the mortgage is due. Really, I don't look forward to those letters. You can keep ‘em, Billing Departments!!

I DO, however, love my magazines, postcards, letters, packages from my professional organizations, DVDs and books from clubs…you get the picture. These are little presents. Stuff for me to open, stuff that I enjoy reading or looking at, delivered to me, each day, at MY mailbox. Automatically. I just show up at the mailbox, and there they are, all shiny and packaged in plastic, or tucked into big brown packs, or crisp white letter envelopes.

I have loved mail since I was a kid. My brother and I used to sign up for all the seed catalogues, free calendars and farm catalogues advertized in the Old Farmers Almanac. From then on, every day, we would get little presents from the postman. Craft-matic adjustable beds spent a lot of money on paper and postage on account of my brother. He took the the love of mail even a few steps forward and wrote to a dozen or so pen pals around the globe. I had a pen pal for a while, too…Nimi Ibrahim from someplace in India. A letter from Nimi was like Christmas. The idea that somebody, somewhere in the world, was thinking of me and took the time to jot down their thoughts on paper and send them to me was so wonderful.

Most of the mail I get now is in the form of magazines. I love my magazines! Every Friday, Entertainment Weekly, and once or twice a month I get Discover, National Geographic, Men’s Health, Rolling Stone, POB, ACSM Bulletin, Salis, People en Español, The Benchmark, The TBM, American Heritage and my newest, Hobby Farms. These are what I look forward to, they provide so many hours of entertainment or education, or both.

So I have an idea, which actually prompted this blog posting. It would be fun to receive and send stuff from my friends and readers who follow my blog, here and through Twitter or Face book.

Send me a note or a postcard. Or put a signed picture of yourself, or a copy of your favorite take-out menu, or a small coin or item from your locale. I’ll follow up with something of the like from here in Cheshire County. I think it would be fun to start correspondence with others from around the country or around the globe and have something more tangible that a few bytes of data on a server somewhere. Maybe if it turns out successfully, I’ll start a blog series about the stuff I get, where it comes from, depending on how much, if any, response I get.

You can send mail or postcards to:

Russ Huntley
331 Poocham Road
Westmoreland, New Hampshire, USA 03467

 

We’ll see how the experiment goes. I’ll let you know.

Back to the Drawing Board

So, I still haven’t settled on anything that really grabs as far as my blog goes. I’m back to my original template for now.  We’ll see how it goes.

And please, let me know if you like this version better than the darker version I’ve had for the past week or two.

I know; if it’s not worth reading who cares, but just as in fine dining, presentation is very important, so I’m struggling with coming up with something I want to continue with. 

I also wish I could get an Uncial font to work, but I haven’t been successful so far.

A new look

Well friends, here it is; a new fresh look to my blog. This is in part because I wanted something new to look at, but mostly because, in trying to edit and fix some problems with my previous template, I caused major blog template trauma.. I dubbed around with a number of different ones, and I still haven’t settled permanently on this one. Let me know what you think. I may make a few changes here and there over the next few weeks or so, and try different things out.

Belyashi

So I made these little lamb pies the other night. I got the recipe out of this cool book and I wanted to try something.

The recipe called for fresh or ground lamb and caramelized onions for the filling. Well…I didn’t have the fresh lamb, but as luck would have it, I had 1/2 a lamb roast from a gift that a buddy at work had given us for Christmas. Tracy had cooked it with a cranberry ginger sauce and it was so delicious, so I minced up about 1/2lb of the leftovers in the fridge for this recipe, including generous portions of the sauce. I also used shallots instead of onions (again, left from a previous recipe and not standard fare in the pantry) and added some minced dates and a pinch of Garam Masala at the end…just for a little zing.

The pastry dough is rolled out in little squares, very thin. You put a scoop of the lamb filling in the center and fold/crimp the pastry around it, leaving a small open area at the top, then flatten with your palm. Then you fry them in a small amount of peanut oil, first the open face, then the bottom, At the end, you add water to cover the bottom of the pan and cover for 30 seconds to steam

I haven't made a lot of pastries, so they didn’t come out pretty. They DID however taste fantastic! I wasn’t sure if the kids would eat them….they both gave the plate “the look.” One bite though, and it was a feeding frenzy.

My first pastry experiment and it was a success. I’m sure with more practice, they will also LOOK delicious too. How something looks is such a big secret to how it ends up satisfying the palate. (and really, the choice of an aquamarine dinner plate was NOT key)

I’m not much a sweets person (except for chocolate, which I DO love). I’m more of a savory and spicy cook, I like to cook things that excite the senses. I’ll be making more of these in the future and experimenting with other little pies as well.

Take care

2010 is upon us!

So it’s finally here…2010. Since the Solstice, we've been sitting by the fires, hibernating in our dens; eating comfort foods, watching movies, napping, playing on-line, re-connecting with friends and family, old and new. As this weekend draws to a close and our annual hibernation is over, it’s time to re-emerge into the world. The winter is far from over, but already the sun’s weak energy is influencing us to action and motion.

Years ago, in a previous life, I was sent to a Dale Carnegie course, kind of a promotion and transition in the place that I worked. I actually got a great deal out of that course. One of the things that has stuck with me all these years is a tool to use, a successful method to help achieve ones goals in life. Simply put, you have to put your goal out there into the cosmos.

Setting a goal for yourself, and keeping it to yourself, often times relegates that goal to the dreaded “Someday” list. Publicizing your goals on the other hand, gives you motivation, especially if you tell people who you love, that you look up to, who you respect, etc. For some reason it works to give you some kind of responsibility, a commitment or pledge, even if only imagined, that is harder to break. It’s not a guarantee, but it is a great motivator…and as I’ve always found…ANY help in the right direction is GOOD help.

So in keeping with this theory, I’ would like to offer to you, my dear friends and readers, my lists of goals and resolutions for the coming year….my voodoo for making my dreams a reality, if you will. And of course, being a Virgo and a compulsive list-maker and categorizer, it’s all listed out below, with pictures and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one.

Personal goals

• Continue my Spanish Studies. I feel pretty comfortable reading, and not so bad at writing, but my verbal skills are still pretty poor. This year I will focus on actually talking to people. (Se tiene que mover la boca, como dicen mis amigos). I’ve developed a love and passion for the language, thanks to a few friends, now it’s time to USE it.
• Continue writing. Sounds simple. I’m going to add to this simple task the added depth of developing my two blog series into something I publish monthly…something with a little more substance. I’ve been inspired by two of my favorite blogs “you don’t have to read v2.0” & “aromasysabores”. and I want to step it up…to be in the same league.
• Take another family vacation this summer. Although plans aren’t really made as to destination, I would like to go for a week to some place like Colonial Williamsburg, Quebec City, or Washington DC. Maybe a week’s tour of the 19+/- Smithsonian Museums. Something for us to remember as a family, to learn from and enjoy together.  Another family camping vacation at the end of the summer is also in the queue.
• Get a passport for myself and the family. I guess this is probably kind of critical if we want to go to Canada or Mexico in the near future.
• Begin, in earnest, the long dreamed of Tavern…at least the plans. It’s a far reaching goal involving an Inn/Tavern, the sea (or maybe a river), a boat, a small surveying business in a side office, cooking, live music, and other, as yet unpublished thoughts. Breakfast and dinner only.
• Start the process to become licensed as a surveyor in Massachusetts. I’ve passed the national exam and have my NH license. Just need to build a portfolio, and apply for the Mass State exams (written and oral) I’m going to sit for the exam in October, as it’s too late to apply for the April examinations.
• Become more involved in my professional associations; NHLSA, NHANRS & GSDI.
• Continue the quest and devote my free time at home to beautifying the yard with gardens, fences, walls, plants, flowers, etc. The plan evolves as I do stuff, so who knows what the final outcome will be. Right now I have in my mind to: finish the split rail fence down the south side of the driveway and out to the woods; cut down the dying trees; plant 4 apple trees in the front “orchard”; continue the “wetland” garden with more blueberries, cattails, winterberry holly & cranberries.; clean up the bank behind the house; finish off the driveway bank with more rugosa roses and a stone retaining wall near the house; build a new compost bin; more/new chickens and a new coop location near the shed
• Host a summer bash, hopefully a solstice party.
• And as always, step up the workouts and health conscious dietary choices to get back to “fighting form”

It’s a lot of stuff, I know, but for me, the more the merrier. It’ll take me all year to do it all, whether I have one goal or a hundred….might as well fill my dance card.

Thanks for listening and please people…hold me to it!