Corn chowder

This post will kill two birds with one stone.  First I can show you the awesome soup bowls my in-law's gave me for my birthday.  I also realized I haven't posted a recipe in quite a while.  Since what I have in the picture below is a corn chowder, I'll share the recipe for it.  This is one of my all-time favorite soups and it's super easy!

Corn Chowder

Ingredients

• 1/4 pound bacon, diced finely
• 1 large onion - chopped
• 7 oz can of green chilies
• Kosher salt and black pepper
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 4 cups chicken broth or stock
• 4 cups peeled, finely diced all-purpose potato
• 1 tablespoon dried thyme
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper (pretty spicy… add less if you like less heat)
• 2 tablespoons Italian parsley
• 2 cups fresh or frozen corn kernels
• 1 cup half-and-half

Directions

Cook bacon until super, super crispy!  Scoop out the bacon and drain on paper towels. Save for later--don't nibble too much.

Pour off all but 1/4 cup of fat from the pot. Toss in the onions and green chilies, seasoning them with a pinch of salt and pepper. Cook till soft and then throw in the garlic, cooking it all for 1 minute more. Sprinkle on the flour and mix into the veggies. Dump in the broth, potatoes, thyme, cayenne and parsley. Cover the pot and bring to a boil; then lower the heat and simmer for about 1 hour, or till the potatoes are tender. Add the corn. Cover and simmer everything 5 to 6 minutes longer.  Stir in the half-and-half and crispy bacon. Check seasonings… add more salt if needed, and lots of freshly ground black pepper to taste. Give it one last stir, and ladle it up piping hot.

Evie's first trip

At 7-weeks old, we took Evie on her first extended car trip.  We drove 5 hours to Arkansas to visit Dan's parents.  Samuel doesn't sleep in the car (he's not bad, he just doesn't sleep) so we weren't sure how Evie would do; the furthest she'd been was a 1 hour trip.  I'm happy to say she slept the entire way!

We had a great time visiting and happy that Grammy and Grandpa finally had a chance to meet Evie.  Here's Grammy and Evie snuggling...




After 5 days, we packed up and headed back home.  We figured Evie sleeping the whole way down was a fluke, but much to our relief, she slept the entire trip home too.  It seems we have two great travelers, even though they're completely opposite.

Sleeping beauty

We never fail to get a good laugh when we watch Samuel sleep.  When he was about 6-months old, he started this odd habit of crawling into the corner of his bed to sleep.  This continued, and every time he sleeps he crams his head into one particular corner of the crib.  We can't even get him to try a new corner.

You can see here how much of his crib is never used...

And when we say he crams his head into the corner, he really crams it in there!...




And then he wakes up with some crazy bed head...

Puppies

A while back  you may remember me telling you about our Great Pyrenees - Shy and Tim.  We bought them to guard our sheep, but they've turned into mooches.  They disappear all day, hang out with our neighbor's cattle and then sneak back over at night to eat food we put out for them.  (Yeah, we know... stop feeding them and they'll find a new home, but we don't have the heart to stop putting food out.)

A few weeks ago, our neighbor called (the one whose cattle they so proudly protect) to tell us he saw Shy and thought she was pregnant or perhaps just gave birth.  Sure enough, she started hanging around during the day and it was obvious that she, umm,  had a large quantity of milk production going on.  We started following her to see if we could find out where she hid the pups.  After a couple of days of recon, Dan found that she stashed them in a hollowed out brush pile to keep them safe and warm.  We left them with Shy, in the brush pile, for another two weeks or so.  By that time, we figured they would be old enough to be moved and start to be weaned.  We didn't want to try sooner in case Shy wanted nothing to do with them after the move.

Dan built a new pen and a shelter big enough for Shy and her pups.  Turns out she had a 7 pups - rather large for her first litter.  Unfortunately one died.  Looks like Tim fathered 3 of them, so we have 3 white, full-blooded Great Pyrenees. One black pup that we think is from a black lab we see running around and 2 brown pups that look like a boxer we see around some times.  We're going to keep the 3 Pyrenees for ourselves (hopefully we can train them to guard the sheep since their parents failed to do this) and we'll give the rest away.  In fact, we've already given the black pup to our neighbors - the same neighbor with the cattle.  (Perhaps if they train the pup to guard the cattle Shy and Tim will come back to us???)  Now we just need to find homes for the brown pups.

Here's a pic of the Pyrenees and the brown Pyrenees/Boxer mix:



These brown pups are ADORABLE!  We'd really like to find a home for them soon.  If you're in the St. Louis/Potosi area and are interested, leave a comment with a way to contact you!