Well, I finally got another instrument. Yep! me! I got another instrument! I got a violin… one of those instruments I have always loved and always wanted to be able to play. No, I don’t know how to play it yet, but I’m really happy to finally have another instrument to try to learn. :P I say try, because I will try. It doesn’t mean I will succeed tho! Hehe! Any tips from violin players would be wonderful too.

remember, click on the images to view them full size. :)

that photo is much better in full size!

The first insturment I got was an acoustic guitar. I was really gonna learn that. But without a teacher, and being twelve to thirteen, I really didn’t have the know how to make myself learn. I’m glad I didn’t get really attached to it, though, because it somehow… mysteriously… got it’s head twisted off. o.O I’m not quite sure how that happened since it was just sitting in the case on the stand, in the parlour, doing nothing. Never found the culprit for that either.

…go ahead, just slide… hehe!

Hopefully, I’ll soon be fiddling with my new violin. ;) My dear friends’ whom I got the violin from also sent me a beginner’s book, which has a DVD. With it, and the internet, I hope to be able to play a few tunes in a short time. If I ever get the chance to have a teacher, I would take that opportunity! :) Perhaps, some day, some day. I’m really excited to have an instrument. Hopefully I will be able to learn it and then teach my younger siblings how to play it too.

sorry for the fuzzies, i didn’t see them until after I took the photo. :)

Whenever I think of a fiddler, there are four people who come to mind: Leah R. from the Seven Sisters, Sarah Lirette, who taught me how to play a simple song when she came to our house in 2009, David Garrett, because I enjoy his songs, and Tevye, from The Fiddler on the Roof.  Yeah, those are who I always picture with a violin in their hands.

:biggrin:

I’ve played a little with it, run the bow along the strings, and smiled when they made a sound. I read about how to hold it, and the position of the hand that has the bow and the way your hands moves when you go up and down on the strings when playing. It is all so new and interesting, but a lot of new work for me to train myself in. It will be fun, but also frustrating I’m sure, for I’m no expert at it… [or anything for that matter!]

bowstrings are delicate things… and interesting ones too.

Do you play any instruments? If you do, what are they and how/when did you learn and why did you learn? I’d love to know. ;)

.sheer goodness.

I love English muffins, and without an oven for the past, oh, say month and a half to almost two months, I’ve been making quite a few of them. First it was the sourdough English muffins; I actually have a better liking for those than the regular yeast ones, because I love all things sourdough! I decided to do a little researching on the whole English muffin thing when I took these photos, and found out some interesting things.

nummy nommy nummy nommy

Well, English muffins are really the American version of the English crumpet… altho some sources say that the English muffin is English and some say it isn’t. So, I guess it is a disputable fact. :) I know crumets are English. Sort of like French toast isn’t really from France I guess. I don’t know. All I know is that I love these little round flatbreads, toasted with butter melting on top, or with mashed avocado and lettuce on tops with potatoes and eggs, that’s all I know.

So here’s the recipe I use for english muffins. Quick, easy and not that difficult at all. :)

English Muffins
yield – about a dozen muffins
1 package active dry yeast/k2-1/4 tsps – you could instant yeast if you wanted ton
1 cup warm water
3 cups whole wheat flour
1/4 cup shortening/olive oil/sunflower oil/coconut oil
2 tbsps. honey
1-1/2 tsps. salt
cornmeal/flour

Dissolve yeast in warm water in a medium-large mixing bowl. Stir in flour, shortening, honey and salt until water is absorbed and dough cleans the sides of the bowl.  Turn dough onto lightly floured surface; knead lightly until it is easy to handle, 5 – 10 minutes. yeah! give those arms a workout! Roll out to 1/4 an inch thick, adding a little flour as needed, and then using a floured biscuit cutter or in my way, a mason jar ring, and cut out 3-1/2 inch rounds.

Sprinkle ungreased cookie or baking sheet with the cornmeal. cornmeal here is a little expensive, and we hardly ever have it, so I use flour. just enough to prevent it from sticking while it rises, but not enough to make a big difference in the pan. Place them about an inch apart on the sheet; sprinkle tops with cornmeal. or in my case, a little dusting of flour. Cover and let rise 45 minutes to an hour. It’ll be all puffy looking and you can touch it and leave a mark in it.

Heat an ungreased griddle, or if you’re like me and don’t own one, heat up your 10-inch iron skillet to very hot, then turn it to low. When it’s all heated, put in as many rounds as will fit in comfortable to the pan. Be careful when you put them in, so as not to let much of the air that has accumulated in them out. Cook until they are a deep golden brown and then turn over and brown the other side. Serve them split, with butter or jam, toasted or not. The easiest way to split them is with a fork, so I’ve found.

I really like flatbreads, and these, when split, are more like an actual piece of sandwich bread. You can use them for sandwiches, for egg salad, tuna salad, chickens salad, as hamburger buns, BBQ anything, or a turkey sandwich. Ok, I’m getting hungry now!!!! :)

As I hinted to above, one of my favourite ways of eating them is this: toast it until it’s crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. Mash about 1/4 of an avocado, put it on top of the muffin, salt it, cumin it or add some cayenne if you want. Then, take some potato cubes, fry ‘em up a little bit, then put some eggs in them and scramble them. Then, top it on the avocado muffin. I like to add some lettuce leaves to the top of it, and eat it sort of like a pizza. It is yummy yummy in my tummy tummy.

So you should totally make some of these English muffins, or the sourdough ones. Yeah. Do that. You won’t regret it!

as ever,
-Ra’chel

As promised, the other photos from the other day.

a prong off the barbed wire fencing. all the fences have them, and boy do they hurt!

branches in the sky! :)

the fence line for the cow pasture.

some natural prettiness.

…write me a poem…

the tops of the trees that are scarcely touched with leaves.

as ever,
-Ra’chel

Well, due to some badgering about some photos of Pearl the Goat [hehe!] I decided to go out to the field and take a few shots of her to satisfy my brother-in-law’s wanting to see some. So, Isaiah, I hope you enjoy these photos. :)

click on photos for larger view.

She was eating out in the cow pasture [a bigger photo of that a little farther down there!]

Then she wanted to go home… I found out later she wanted water.

But first, a detour down the roads a ways to eat some of the nommy nommy grass.

*munch munch*

*eat eat eat*

She loves to eat that grass!

“Hey… how ya doin’?”

Now that those are out of the way, I’ll show you some of the photos I took.

#1. the beautiful scenic view of the cow pasture. Awesome isn’t it? I was SO proud of myself for taking that photo!

#2. the view on the left hand side of the above photo, of the road.

#3. Some of the wild culantro we glean from the fields and by the pasture:

I hate the smell of the plant; makes me wanna puke! but it’s good for you so I eat it when sick people [i.e. Jocelyn and Mom. :D] put it in my food. Ew.

#4. I saw this thistle-like flower and thought it was pretty. We had a tone of thistle plants at home, but they hada purple flower. I can’t remember the name of it.

#5. The ‘shortcut’ that I call the path. I took another panorama view, only using two photos this time, of the little path:

It runs through the field on the side of the house. I like that path.

#6. The sun was in the western sky, and the road was half shadowed.

#7. The guanacaste [gwahn-ah-cahst-ay] tree is getting green again. It was like that when we first got to this house at the end of January last year too. I think it has some more buds on it right now than it had then; maybe it was late in growing its leaves last year.

Samo wanted to go out to the field with me, but I told him he couldn’t. Mainly because he was pantless. O.O So I promised him a photo when I came back.

Ain’t he sweet?! Can’t resist that grin!

*goober* :)

I have some more photos of different natural things, such as trees, which I will put up sometime later this week. :) Hope you all enjoyed the photos; I enjoyed getting outside with the camera again. Thanks for the motivation. :) Photography is awesome.

as ever,
-Ra’chel

It was always amazing to me when it would thunderstorm or rain hard in Indiana and then all of the sudden, the clouds would part and the sun would shine down through the opening. It seemed like it was all wrong: the sun shining while it was raining?! That sounded and looked ludicrous to me. It seemed like it was a different world than what I had known; it was really just strange to me!

click image for larger view

Here in Costa Rica, that anomaly I thought so bizarre, happens so often that it shouldn’t amaze me anymore. But it does. I am still amazed by the fact that the sun is shining when the rain is blowing in torrents down from the clouds that only cover half of the sky. The wind and the rain always amaze me here.

Psalm 135
5 For I know that YHVh is great,
That our Elohim is above all elohim.
6 Whatever YHVH pleased, that he has done,
In heaven and in eretz, in the seas and in all deeps;
7 Who causes the clouds to rise from the ends of the eretz;
Who makes lightnings with the rain;
Who brings forth the wind out of his treasuries;

I remember there were some storms in Indiana that I thought were really a scary thing. I remember them quite vividly, and astonishingly, they still seem so real and fantastic even now. I suppose it is because they made an impression on my mind; they are still engraved into my brain. Etched, so to speak.

But today was such another day where I am baffled by the natural happenings of the world around me: the sun was shining while the rain blew through the air. The front of the house, because it basically faces east, and that is the normal direction of the blowing rain and wind, was spray-painted by the rain:

click image for larger view

I thought it was cool. And the reason that the rain and winds mostly come from the east direction is because that is the direction that Lake Arenal is.

The chickens were still out in the backyard in spite of the rain and wind:

click image for larger view

They were out of the goat pen where Pearlie stood in shelter from the rain, crazies. Sol was also out with Midnight and another of the red hens… which I have dubbed Anne Shirley, because she is a red head. :P And I have named those three too in the photo:

Clementine, Pumpkin-Elle and Sienna.

:)

Anyhow. Just thought you’d all like to know all of that. I know you did, don’t lie to me! :) I know you did… hehe!

as ever,
-Ra’chel

Hehehe! I couldn’t resist the temptation on the title… I was saying it like “I’ve got a jar of dirt! I’ve got a jar of dirt!” and had to put it as my title. That teasing, taunting, “look what I’ve got and you don’t!” line… Sorry, my fault!

Anyhoo, a blogger friend, Emily D. tweeted that she was drinking a cup of tea about a month or so ago, and I tweeted and asked her what kind it was. She said it red raspberry, and so the conversation went on until she said that she would pick me up some tea and send it to me. I was thinking like a box or two of tea…

nope…

she sent me six boxes!

Boy! I was sooo happy about that! All herbal teas! The teas here, especially the herbals, have a sort of taste that I can only describe as being a sort of ‘perfume’ taste. Know what I mean? :) I love herbal teas and she sent me some of my favourite kinds!

my favourite: lemon zinger!

red raspberry!

sweet dreams!

Tazo passion!

berry zinger!

cozy chamomile!

Mom was just asking a couple of days ago if we had any of the sweet dreams tea to make because she wasn’t feeling good and she wanted some nice hot, calming and reviving herbal tea. Now?! I have a whole box to make her! [doesn't help with that feeling a couple of days ago... but hey! it will next time!]

Samo wanted to help me unpack the tea and “Make tea!” That’s what he says whenever he wants a cup of tea. He talks so well; he says almost every syllable when he repeats something. He’s so awesome! He talks so good. :) I loves him!

He took all three of the boxes out of the box and was juggling them. He looked over at Mom who came in the room at that moment so he wasn’t looking at the camera.

“Which one do you want, Ra’chel?”

“How ’bout this one?!”

He liked the purple Tazo Passion tea. Maybe it was the colour? :)

He’s so stinkin’ cute!

So, thank you SO much, Emily! You’re such a dear! Love ya!

as ever,
sipping a glass of cold lemon zinger tea with honey,
-Ra’chel