Fish aren’t the only things around here that (eventually) need to eat.  Keith and I start talking the weekend’s cooking mid-week before so trips to Costco, Sam’s and HEB can be worked into the crossword puzzle that is our family’s schedule.  Tomorrow, Keith wants to make some special toasted cheese sandwiches he’s seen created on a cooking show (being on disability gives a guy plenty of time to watch Emeril, Alton, etc.)  And what goes best with toasted cheese sandwiches?  Tomato soup!  At least my kids have always thought so.

I’ve tried several tomato soup recipes and finally distilled them into one of my own.  Everyone who has tried it has liked it – and I’ve served it plenty’o'times.  So here’s the recipe.  It takes about an hour to fix, and the only bad part is the clean-up.  You have to wash your food processor, blender, a big cooking pot and big bowl.  Other than that – it is very, very easy, as you will see.  And tasty, as you’ll see if you make it.

Ingredients?  Nothing fancy.

-  A handful of baby carrots, or two big peeled carrots

-  2  medium-large onions

-  2 28-oz. cans of crushed tomatoes

-  1 can of tomato paste

-  1 qt. of chicken stock or broth (I like stock better)

-  1/3 cup flour

-  3 bay leaves

-  2 tsp. basil

-  1 tsp. oregano

-  1 pint half’n”half (or cream or milk)

-  1 stick butter

-  Dash of pepper

-  Dash of powdered garlic

May also want some garlic salt.  Depends.  I usually don’t add this until the very end, after I taste it.

Put your carrots and your chopped onion into the food processor and really grind them up.  Melt the stick of butter, and add the carrots and onion to it, stirring occasionally on low-medium heat for 2 or 3 minutes – until it’s all soft.  If you skip grinding your carrots and onions, you have to cook them a lot longer.  It’d rather grind and wash than stand and stir.

Now add the 1/3 cup of flour to thicken it up.  Stir continuously for about 3 minutes.  Notice the color lightens.

When it’s nice and thick – add the chicken stock, crushed tomatoes and the seasonings.  Stir and let it simmer about 10 minutes on low heat.  Looking prettier!

Here’s the messy part.  Remove the three bay leaves.  Scoop out about a cup – maybe a cup and a half – of soup base.  Put it in your blender, and liquefy it.  Really pound it.  That liquid is hot, and your blender is going to spray it up to the top.  So for goodness sakes, don’t scoop in more than a cup or so of the liquid.  Nothing says a trip to the ER like hot tomato puree in your face.  When it’s liquefied, pour it into a big bowl.

When the base is all liquefied, stir in your dairy.  The soup will lighten color.  And now’s the time to taste it.  Does it need a little garlic salt?  This batch did, but some batches haven’t.

Voila!  A gallon soup tomato soup, plus a lunch-sized jar.  Well, it would have been a lunch-sized jar except…..

My favorite stirrer decided she wasn’t waiting until tomorrow to enjoy a bowl.

The koi may or may not eat tomorrow – but we’re sure going to.

The babies are very small, quick and hard to see.  They generally stick close to the walls of the pond which – now, incredibly, in this 11th episode of “A Man in His Pond” – is five years old.

The blurry (sorry!) little baby is center right.  The girls think we have six babies – our own sextuplets.

Speaking of babies….I’m glad to have all four of mine home after their summer jaunts.  It’s been a few weeks since we’ve all been together.  Julia and Rachel returned from children’s church camp today.  The washer and dryer have not stopped since they hit the door.

(l-r)  Hannah had a week at Sarah’s house, plus youth camp.  Julia had a week at Sarah’s, plus children’s camp.  Rachel had a week at Sarah’s, plus children’s camp (as a counselor.)  Lois had a week at the national Latin competition in Fargo, ND, plus youth camp.  Keith and me?   Well, we got to spend one night in a motel when our air conditioning at home went out.  Plus we took weekly oh-so-glamorous trips to Costco and Sam’s.  We’re wild, we are.

Now it’s all about back-to-school.

College.  High School.  Elementary School.

And of course – our new school of koi.

Julia is convinced they’ll fly back to visit.

They may come back to the pond to drink.   San Antonio is in a prolonged drought.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how our family is changing with Rachel’s upcoming graduation from high school.  She’ll be only half-ours when she’s in college and after that – she’ll be responsible for her own food and shelter.  I’ve spent a chunk of every day worrying over this first baby bug – feeding her, making sure she wasn’t too hot or too cold – putting her near the light when she needed it.

Senior Awards last week – DECA State Competition in Fashion & Apparel, School Store Manager and Choir – Woot!  She was the very last of  300+ honorees (whew!), so, lots of applause!
Lois and Hannah are coming right up behind her, with Julia bringing up the rear.

You rear them to let them go.

But I, too, am hoping they “flutterby” often.

Notice the reflection at the water’s edge.  I am going to have fun with my waterproof Olympus this summer!

He’s made major progress since March, including replacing the back fence, which looked like this yesterday (yawn):

Boring!

But now today – wow!  Finally!  These whimsical terracotta creatures have been buried in blankets in our cedar chest for four years.

Parrots, frogs, lizards, a dragonfly, a moon and sun – and a huge snake that I personally carried across the border at Laredo, when it was still safe to go there.

My favorites – the turtles.  But watch the video.  You’ll see we both have a thing for turtles.

The koi arrived home in water-filled bags, which Keith placed in the pond for temperature acclimation.  Hannah and Julia were allowed to pick out their own fish.  Bart:  Keith has forbidden me to show “Tortuga Giganta” until he’s nestled in the landcaping (still to come.)   So deep breaths!

“Did you get video of the stream?”  “No, dear.”  “Get video of the stream.”

Stay tuned!  And when do you think we’ll have fish in the pond?  Take the poll in the left nav bar!

Today, the deck is rebuilt with much higher quality lumber.  Note the lovely copper post toppers.  It’s about 90% complete.  If we were independently wealthy, Keith would stay home and design/build “things.”  He can not only fix anything, but he can also design/build anything.  My job in all this remains the same:  I bring ice water.

As of Sunday – the pond has water. Note the small wooden bridge over the waterway from the bog.  The grass is brown because it’s February in Texas.  If anyone knows a rain dance – feel free to shake a leg, we could use some help.  Keith tells me the fence must be replaced soon, and of course, the sidewalk between the house and the garage is still torn out.  We have some very cool stepping stones piled in our bedroom, awaiting a new home outside.  So the backyard has a’ways to go.

Engineering Team of Woodworth and Woodworth, a.k.a., Keith and his brother Byron, pondering the perplexing pump.  Most of the pond innards are located under the deck.  I have signed for innumerable boxes which – upon their opening – Keith has mumbled, “For the pond.”   I do not know what the pieces of plastic and metal actually are, nor do I know what they do.  It’s easier that way.

We have less mess inside, though it’s not what you’d call “tidy.”  At least there is no table saw in the entry way, nor hammers piled on the kitchen counter,  I think you could classify the inside of the house, “no worse than usual.”

Keith tells me the next step is “rock work.”

So stay tuned for the next episode of “A Man and His Pond.”  It probably won’t be the series finale.  But at least you don’t have to worry about a writer’s strike.

It’s baccccckkkk!  And at the end of its third season.

Keith is tearing out our original backyard deck to build a pond-plumbing-friendly deck.  This new deck will be stronger and better designed than the original, and will allow for the plumbing that needs to run under it.

The pond (on the left) looks a whole lot like the last time we visited it.  That vegetation is not overgrown.  It’s….ummmm….”natural.”  Yes, that’s it.  We’ve gone back to nature.  Next thing you know, we’ll be beating tamborines and humming “Kumbaya.”

The deck stairs now lead to….nowhere.

Watch it, Hannah!  Without the deck to walk out upon, that first step is a doozy!  And straight down several feet to limestone bedrock. We’re locking – and blocking – the back door in the kitchen.

Keith is the only man I’ve ever known to actually wear out hammers.  When this project is finished, that seven-year-old with three-years-of-pond-construction Fiesta T-shirt is going in the trash.  I wouldn’t even give it to Goodwill.

Because this is not enough mess/confusion – he is also replacing the carpeting in the living room cum office with laminate flooring.

Basically, you can take any object – file cabinets, drill bits, CD’s, CAT 5 wiring, storage boxes, lamps, saws, PVC pipe, chainsaw, empty Diet Coke cans – and set them down in any room of our house, or anywhere around our house – and they look like they belong, since there’s something dust-covered and similar plopped next to it.

Stay tuned for the next installment of “A Man and His Pond.”  Maybe it’ll be the season finale?!