Pack-a-Lunch

Money Saving Mom has a post up about brown bagging lunches.

I brown-bag every day. I'm lucky... we have a kitchen with a hotplate & microwave at work so I can even make grilled cheese or soup for lunch. Hot isn't so lucky... he doesn't know where he will be at lunch-time every day. We are trying to break him of his "stop at Bob's" habit. Bob's is a local gas station/convenience store that has lots of pre-made (fairly tasty actually) lunch options. He gets a diet drink, sunflower seeds, a salad & sometimes a newspaper and spends about $10. Which makes my budget gasp and flutter. It can't be avoided sometimes in the summer but in the winter he can pack a lunch.... or so I think.

I'm getting into the idea of bento lunches. I love this site for her quick and clever lunches... and so cute. (Seriously... did you see the hot dog octopus?)

I'm also trying hard to use pyrex bowls with plastic lids for in the microwave. I have several and could, honestly, use a few more... but my tiny kitchen is already a game of tetris to put things away.... one more bowl might tip me over the edge.

Growing up on a farm has made me something of a master of the packed lunch. During harvest we pack a cooler to last all day. Those little playmate ones. Each of us is assigned a different colored cooler and you are responsible for getting it in the house every night so it gets rinsed out and repacked.

Interesting tips for harvest lunches:

1. It is hot so you are never as hungry as you think you will be... even though you are working hard all day.
2. Pack lots of drinks. I don't drink a lot of pop (soda for the rest of you) but I do love an ice-cold root beer during harvest. And a bottle of lemonade frozen solid is a great ice pack.
3. Pack sandwiches veggies separate. Soggy is not fun. But a gorgeously crafted sandwich piled with veggies on a hoagie is a beautiful thing.
4. You can eat sandwiches every day and still have variety. Deli cold-cuts, shaved ham, smoked turkey, shredded bbq beef, ground beef (I need to get this recipe from my mom), roast chicken, egg salad, tuna, cream cheese and veggies. I don't do pbj but my mom loves peanutbutter and banana sandwiches. Heck, you can even eat Spam during harvest.
5. Harvest is the one time a year you can splurge on those single serve packets. Chip varieties. Maybe those little cheese/cracker packs. Gogurt. Individual fruit cups. Mmm.
6. Oreos are ok but homemade cookies are better. We make up cookies ahead of time and freeze them. Last year my sis-in-law brought over a giant assortment of at least 6 different kinds of homemade cookies for the freezer.... yum.
7. Salad is an option. Last year my dad was on a veggie-veggie-veggie kick. I made him the most beautiful salads with homemade vinagrette dressing.
8. It works for kids. I've done hot dogs in a thermos. Usually it is so hot they just want grapes, carrots & chips.... and, sometimes, you have to be ok with that. They eat more at night when we get home and it has cooled off.... just make sure they get enough liquids. And pack hand sanitizer.
9. Everything tastes better with a little dirt and wheat dust on it.
10. Reuse the baggies.
11. Granola bars pack well. Ice cream bars do not pack well. But... if you are dumping in the bins by the house and you are quick you can win a LOT of points with the combine drivers if you bring them a frozen treat once in a while.
12. If all else fails... grab a can of pork-n-beans, some stewed tomatoes and a can opener. There's actually a bit of a bitter story behind this one. One day I packed a beautiful lunch for myself including powdered donuts, an herbed cheese and veggie sandwich on fancy bread, watermelon, veggies with dip... you get the idea.... well, as fate and truck break-downs would have it.... by lunch time I was in dad's truck and he was in mine. He called me on the radio and I could tell his mouth was full. He did mention how good his lunch was and, by that time, I was starving. I was so happy to roll into the field and see all the combines were empty so I had a minute to eat "my" lunch. I opened the cooler and saw a can of pork-n-beans (which I dispise), a diet coke (yuck... and no ice pack even) and a can opener. Lucky me.

We call her Tinklebell

Let's pause in the picture frenzy for a very funny story about my mom.

First, this is my mom:

Here's the background to the story that you need to know to see it as funny: See behind mom in the picture? That's the hopper on the truck and it is dumping into the hopper on the auger. The blue thing is the auger. It runs on hydraulics from the tractor to make the wheat go up into the bin. Get it? Ok, so the auger has a hopper-walker. The hopper-walker is this nifty electronic deal that walks the hopper out. So it works like this:

You pull up next to the auger with your big, big truck and jump out and use the hopper-walker to walk the hopper under your truck's dumpy thingy (technical term, stay with me) and start the auger, well, augging (more on that danger later). Then you "let 'er rip, tater chip." (So, that means you open up the truck hopper and wheat dumps into the auger hopper and gets auggered up into the bin.) Got it?

It's all pretty sweet and will be sweeter when I figure out how to download a cool song to program into the hopper-walker... right now it just goes "beep, beep" while it walks out.

Ok, more background. This story isn't very funny so far, is it? The hopper-walker is operated by a toggle switch (I would say the toggle switch is operated by a dipstick but that would be rude and insulting) and runs off the battery of the tractor (for those of you with a tech or farming background... this means it can operate when the tractor is not running).

So you can use this switch or the keychain remote. Yes. A remote. The idea is you can get in the truck, start it, move it so the box isn't in the way of the hopper's path and move it with the remote so you don't have to get out of the truck again. Sweet, huh?

So mom has a remote. In her pocket. And she has to pee. What? How can I be delicate about that? It happens. It's all the gatorade. Remember, first, that the bins are in the middle of town. Ok, now remember town looks like this:

And that is why you can squat-n-pee in the middle of town. Which is what mom did, one fine summer day. With the remote in her pocket. Do you see where this is going? SHE. ACTIVATED. THE. REMOTE. And walked the auger out from under the truck while it was dumping.

How funny is that?

And, more importantly, how big a pile of wheat can you dump on the ground in the time it takes to tinkle and pull up your Wranglers?

About 10 feet in diameter apparently.

Classic

Long Live the King

That's a big friggin steering unit

Sis again

She said to just label this one, "Harvest 2008"

G-Grandpa's Truck

Great-Grandpa's Truck, the Jimmy, has over a million miles on it. Great-Grandpa (my grandpa) has about a million on him as well. He's a 1922 model.

Slug, the orange fuel pickup, has no brakes.... ask me how I know this.....

Check out the skyline.... that is Flat.

Plain Old.... Not Bad.

So pretty. One of my favorite things. I wish I could make this post scratch-n-sniff... well.... so you could smell the ripe wheat.... not so you could smell the dust, diesel and sweat.

Eagle

My sister.

Nice boots.

Nice glasses.

Nice.... surgical mask??

In Training

I guess I better point out the tiny little farmer-man sticking up there next to the stack.... That's my boy.... he's checkin' the wheat for Grandma....