I got up at 7 am to pick peas and beans today. We started picking the pea rows last night for dinner and it was nice all of us sitting on the front porch shelling the peas for dinner while the bison steaks were on the BBQ.
This morning I got up before anyone else, and picked several gallons of peas and beans and then as people started to wake up, they came out and just started shelling peas to help me out. I need to get them blanched and frozen here in a little bit, but I thought I deserved a break since I got out of the flow with a couple phone calls.
Picture Above : My boyfriend helping to shell peasFoot ball season started last night and the boys are pouring on the food even more so than normal. Especially fruit!! I need to start buying that in cases as well.Well, I ought to pull in the laundry off the line and toss another load into the washer and go make my bed.. think of what to have with dinner tonight and make something for a snack for the boys.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
August 17, 2006
I was dreaming this really cool dream and having a great time with people I knew, when suddenly there was this part that did not work with the dream.. a noise.. rather.. many of the noises rather.. Kiiiii- keeeeee-Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.. OMG.. I forgot to lock the chickens in the barn last night and the hawks were calling. I threw on clothes as I ran through the house while trying to focus my eyes I think.. those memories I am pretty bleary about that .. grabbed my tennis shoes and ran through the newly planted lawn and headed up to the chicken pens.The darn things were flitting from tree to tree.. there were two of them. While I was standing in the chicken pen, trying to convince the chickens they were going to die if they did not get back into the barn (YEAH RIGHT!), one and then the other hawk, landed in the dead tree top next to the hog pen. They were not 30 feet from me and I kept jumping up and down and flapping my arms yelling at them and they seemed to not even realize I was there. They were quite aloof.
Finally they flew off and I grabbed "Kid" out of bed to stand guard and try to help me put the chickens in.. then we sent him out there with a pellet gun and a lawn chair. We can hear the birds but they must be 'next door' now.I got last nights laundry hung to dry outside by 8:30 am.. so it will probably be dry by noon on a day like today.. it is nice and sunny now. Not like the last 2 days.. "Teenager" has been doing alot of his laundry lately and using the dryer which we must put a stop to.. our electric bill went from $54 for every 2 months to over $163 for 2 months.. and that is in the summer.. it is pathetic our electric bill goes up in the summer. I am going to be getting wooden racks for drying this winter inside and he will have to use the clothes line for drying his clothing like the rest of us do.
Yesterday morning was chilly. It was 5C/ 41F and very foggy and I thought the house was a little bit cold to take a bath and then head outside.. This morning is 15C in the house, but I opened the windows anyway. "Kid" is going to bring down a load of firewood and cut up some kindling today and "Teenager" and I are going to clean the woodstove pipe.Yesterday was also the fresh produce co-op.. so I spend the whole day there. It is summertime and people have gardens and the farmers market is each Saturday, so the numbers are down, but I expect come Fall they will come back up again.
Last night I started on a sock.. the first of the Fall/Winter. I have to finish another mate for my "MIL", since I have one done for her.. made the other and found out I did a single instead of a double blue row, which made me mad and I quit on that project for awhile.. this new one is black and a pale golden/yellow and in a 15th century pattern. I am having fun with it, but you need to not be tired to actually get the pattern correct.
Feeding the hogs is scary now. I did it by myself this morning, but I do not like to go into their pen without someone there. They are getting pushy and they are starting to fight each other if they are not fed on time. They are well over 100 pounds now. It is unfortunate that their feeder is now in the middle of their pen. I need to get them some bowling balls to shove around other than the feed trough which is actually quite heavy metal.
Today's list is to make Zucchini Bread, pick a LOT of peas and probably shell and blanche then and freeze. I also probably have beans to pick again. We discovered we have 6 pumpkins which will be a nice size for Fall.. they were all volunteers from the compost bucket. We also had cheery tomatoes and peppers volunteer from the compost bucket as well.. I also have a bunch of wine I need to rack off and/or bottle and actually I do not really want to deal with them today.. maybe tomorrow.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is
Finally they flew off and I grabbed "Kid" out of bed to stand guard and try to help me put the chickens in.. then we sent him out there with a pellet gun and a lawn chair. We can hear the birds but they must be 'next door' now.I got last nights laundry hung to dry outside by 8:30 am.. so it will probably be dry by noon on a day like today.. it is nice and sunny now. Not like the last 2 days.. "Teenager" has been doing alot of his laundry lately and using the dryer which we must put a stop to.. our electric bill went from $54 for every 2 months to over $163 for 2 months.. and that is in the summer.. it is pathetic our electric bill goes up in the summer. I am going to be getting wooden racks for drying this winter inside and he will have to use the clothes line for drying his clothing like the rest of us do.
Yesterday morning was chilly. It was 5C/ 41F and very foggy and I thought the house was a little bit cold to take a bath and then head outside.. This morning is 15C in the house, but I opened the windows anyway. "Kid" is going to bring down a load of firewood and cut up some kindling today and "Teenager" and I are going to clean the woodstove pipe.Yesterday was also the fresh produce co-op.. so I spend the whole day there. It is summertime and people have gardens and the farmers market is each Saturday, so the numbers are down, but I expect come Fall they will come back up again.
Last night I started on a sock.. the first of the Fall/Winter. I have to finish another mate for my "MIL", since I have one done for her.. made the other and found out I did a single instead of a double blue row, which made me mad and I quit on that project for awhile.. this new one is black and a pale golden/yellow and in a 15th century pattern. I am having fun with it, but you need to not be tired to actually get the pattern correct.
Feeding the hogs is scary now. I did it by myself this morning, but I do not like to go into their pen without someone there. They are getting pushy and they are starting to fight each other if they are not fed on time. They are well over 100 pounds now. It is unfortunate that their feeder is now in the middle of their pen. I need to get them some bowling balls to shove around other than the feed trough which is actually quite heavy metal.
Today's list is to make Zucchini Bread, pick a LOT of peas and probably shell and blanche then and freeze. I also probably have beans to pick again. We discovered we have 6 pumpkins which will be a nice size for Fall.. they were all volunteers from the compost bucket. We also had cheery tomatoes and peppers volunteer from the compost bucket as well.. I also have a bunch of wine I need to rack off and/or bottle and actually I do not really want to deal with them today.. maybe tomorrow.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is
Monday, March 19, 2007
August 15, 2006
I was coming back from getting 400 pounds of animal feed from the farm store and then picked up our 12 year old cousin to babysit for the day... as we neared the top of our hill and just before our driveway. I see a large dark animal which sorta, but not really looked like a horse standing in the middle of the road and I was beginning to think it was a moose.....and it was a moose. I was pretty excited about just seeing a moose in the road as they rarely stand and wait for you to look at them very well and as I just started to notice something about it.. "Kid" yells out that it had HORNS! After five years of my quest of looking for a bull moose, and lamenting about it here periodically, I FINALLY saw a BULL moose!!! And he stood there.. well, he got off the road and stood in the paper birch trees which were along the road, but that white bark of the paper birches showed him off magnificently. And we stopped the truck in the middle of the roadway and watched him for the longest time while he was watching us.
I was just so excited and me.. who carries my camera with me all the time, did not have my camera *sad*.. but oh well.. he is in the area and our pond is the closest for water, so I am sure he will come to drink and maybe munch on the horses round bale.
The rest of my day consisted of putting my house into order. I sorta of accomplished a bit of Fall cleaning. I have noted that the leaves of certain vegetation has started to change. I have 3 carboys of wine I need to rack off and/or bottle this week. I also feel like starting to make some more socks. I even priced some 50# sacks of coal as I am just itching to fire up my forge.Got alot of magazines I need to mail tomorrow. Got them addressed tonight. It is exciting to see how much the magazine has grown since last year when it started. I have a few really fun ones I have come up with this week. One will be in the Fall issue for Kids (of all ages) and then the other one will be in the Winter issue.
I also went to a historical town this last week and in one of the interpretation things they do with it, I came up with a plan.. one for the magazine and one to help them. They seemed very interested in it and I need to go back one of these days to go help, learn and write. I am excited about this one as well.Well I think I am off to relax for a bit.. and I am going to start on a new sock.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
I was just so excited and me.. who carries my camera with me all the time, did not have my camera *sad*.. but oh well.. he is in the area and our pond is the closest for water, so I am sure he will come to drink and maybe munch on the horses round bale.
The rest of my day consisted of putting my house into order. I sorta of accomplished a bit of Fall cleaning. I have noted that the leaves of certain vegetation has started to change. I have 3 carboys of wine I need to rack off and/or bottle this week. I also feel like starting to make some more socks. I even priced some 50# sacks of coal as I am just itching to fire up my forge.Got alot of magazines I need to mail tomorrow. Got them addressed tonight. It is exciting to see how much the magazine has grown since last year when it started. I have a few really fun ones I have come up with this week. One will be in the Fall issue for Kids (of all ages) and then the other one will be in the Winter issue.
I also went to a historical town this last week and in one of the interpretation things they do with it, I came up with a plan.. one for the magazine and one to help them. They seemed very interested in it and I need to go back one of these days to go help, learn and write. I am excited about this one as well.Well I think I am off to relax for a bit.. and I am going to start on a new sock.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
August 14, 2006
I think the people I was tour guiding with while they were looking at the properties up here found their piece. They will know sometime today. I am pretty excited. They promised me the second call, though I am sure I will hear them all the way from the Island.
Last night I had to go to the dump and I got alot of old barn wood (or shed or something) and I am making slip forms for the root cellar. We need to go get the hand cement mixer today sometime as I hope to work on the cellar this upcoming week. I am tired of staring at the hole in the hillside and I believe I have done enough mental planning on the thing that it is time to get going on it, since I will have potatoes to dig in less than a month.
I also took time at sunset to go up to the cabin site and I laid out a 16x16 foot area and sat in there to see if I could live with the way the cabin would be set for both view and sun strategies. And where the woodstove would go (which I need to restore). Then I went out and sat on the 'porch' to see if that would be set right. I was totally relaxing up there and then the "Teenager" came up to talk with me for a wee bit. So he helped me plan as well.I guess I ought to back up just a little bit... as I went up to the site, I had measuring tape, surveyors tape and an axe with me. Just as I got to the site, this big dark/blackish thing got up from the middle of the cabin site and SCARED ME TO DEATH!! I have seen bear tracks and other signs up there. But as this beast was getting taller and taller though the bushes as it jumped up, I finally realized it was one of our horses "Kit", who is the 13-14 hand pony, who had been laying down and I had scared her just about as bad as she had scared me. When I initially did a girly scream and then talking to the horse, "Teenager" heard me and knew where to locate me at. So this morning, I am going to go out and pound old rusty nails out of the barnwood and lay out my lines for the root cellar. I REALLY want to get the walls going so I can make the niche and then start blacksmithing again so I can start building the door. I am thinking on a 14th century church door I have seen once, but I cannot wait to start on the doors. I have been in such a forging mood lately. But I do not want to start on the doors until I know what size the hole is going to be.
My bf and I took a walkabout on the property last night and we decided to take down all the pines and leave the other things (spruce, fir, alder, poplar, birch ect). The Mountain Pine Beetle is attacking the pines younger and younger and we decided to take them down to utilize them now instead of when they are ruined. We can cut alot of them green for siding and cause them to dry faster.A neighbor down the road had her neighbor's kids run bikes all over her property and ruined all her blueberries. So she came over to pick ours. They are spotty this year, not the beautiful blue carpet that we had last year (and I could not pick due to my injury). She is very interesting to talk to as she is a wildcrafter, herbalist and works at a heath food store. So we can gab alot. I fed her homemade cheese and crackers. It was the cheese that was the demo cheese for when the out of town land buying people were here and I showed her how to make cheese easily.
Today's chores are cleaning up the mechanics shoppe since the back part got cleaned out so alot of the stuff being stored in there can go to the back, such as my dog sled. Bringing up another pallet or two for the woodshed to move the 2 cast iron stoves to, so the boys can being in more wood. We try to do a couple trees at a time, get that all cleaned up and then do the next couple, but our faller/bucker friend went faller-happy last weekend and there are about 40 trees down, so that mess needs to be dealt with. Maybe we can set up the Alaskan Mill and start cutting siding and put all the 'learning to cut siding' up on the shoppe to make it look nicer than the black side of the lumber wrap.
Speaking of lumber wrap, I want to put a layer on the top of the mobile home which is the poultry house as there are 2 holes from where some sort of equipment used to have to go through the roof. I do not want to make too many repairs to it, since in the next 2-3 years we will be building a proper barn since this one is probably the first year they ever made mobile homes and it is rotting.
Well, the chickens and turkeys need to be let out and the hogs fed (who are getting large enough they are making me nervous to go in their pen alone. Took chicken counts and we need to butcher at least 15 in a month or so. Some of the roosters need to have their bands removed anyway as their bands are starting to get too tight on their legs and one poor rooster had a small injury from it.
Evening Update:
My new friends indeed got their place. I am excited and thrilled for them. They are new at homesteading and I will help them along as much as I can.
Today was a long, but productive day here. I got the greenhouse watered, picked a 50 foot row of Calendula and took all the petals off for soap making as I have been negligent at making us more for the last few months.
Between the 4 of us, we almost got all of the woodshed filled today. My bf and "Teenager" cut the trees up with chainsaws and then all the guys filled the trucks with the firewood. Then they bring them in from the back 40, sort them from splitting to just stack it. If it gets tossed to the doorway, I then stacked it. My bf did miss the routine.. and I got slammed in the right kneecap with a chunk of wood. Or maybe I missed the routine.. oh well.. I am not limping now.Dinner was a nice chicken Alfredo made with Mozza over spiral noodles and fresh broccoli salad out of our garden. I had some left over Leek Soup which I made yesterday-ish.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
Last night I had to go to the dump and I got alot of old barn wood (or shed or something) and I am making slip forms for the root cellar. We need to go get the hand cement mixer today sometime as I hope to work on the cellar this upcoming week. I am tired of staring at the hole in the hillside and I believe I have done enough mental planning on the thing that it is time to get going on it, since I will have potatoes to dig in less than a month.
I also took time at sunset to go up to the cabin site and I laid out a 16x16 foot area and sat in there to see if I could live with the way the cabin would be set for both view and sun strategies. And where the woodstove would go (which I need to restore). Then I went out and sat on the 'porch' to see if that would be set right. I was totally relaxing up there and then the "Teenager" came up to talk with me for a wee bit. So he helped me plan as well.I guess I ought to back up just a little bit... as I went up to the site, I had measuring tape, surveyors tape and an axe with me. Just as I got to the site, this big dark/blackish thing got up from the middle of the cabin site and SCARED ME TO DEATH!! I have seen bear tracks and other signs up there. But as this beast was getting taller and taller though the bushes as it jumped up, I finally realized it was one of our horses "Kit", who is the 13-14 hand pony, who had been laying down and I had scared her just about as bad as she had scared me. When I initially did a girly scream and then talking to the horse, "Teenager" heard me and knew where to locate me at. So this morning, I am going to go out and pound old rusty nails out of the barnwood and lay out my lines for the root cellar. I REALLY want to get the walls going so I can make the niche and then start blacksmithing again so I can start building the door. I am thinking on a 14th century church door I have seen once, but I cannot wait to start on the doors. I have been in such a forging mood lately. But I do not want to start on the doors until I know what size the hole is going to be.
My bf and I took a walkabout on the property last night and we decided to take down all the pines and leave the other things (spruce, fir, alder, poplar, birch ect). The Mountain Pine Beetle is attacking the pines younger and younger and we decided to take them down to utilize them now instead of when they are ruined. We can cut alot of them green for siding and cause them to dry faster.A neighbor down the road had her neighbor's kids run bikes all over her property and ruined all her blueberries. So she came over to pick ours. They are spotty this year, not the beautiful blue carpet that we had last year (and I could not pick due to my injury). She is very interesting to talk to as she is a wildcrafter, herbalist and works at a heath food store. So we can gab alot. I fed her homemade cheese and crackers. It was the cheese that was the demo cheese for when the out of town land buying people were here and I showed her how to make cheese easily.
Today's chores are cleaning up the mechanics shoppe since the back part got cleaned out so alot of the stuff being stored in there can go to the back, such as my dog sled. Bringing up another pallet or two for the woodshed to move the 2 cast iron stoves to, so the boys can being in more wood. We try to do a couple trees at a time, get that all cleaned up and then do the next couple, but our faller/bucker friend went faller-happy last weekend and there are about 40 trees down, so that mess needs to be dealt with. Maybe we can set up the Alaskan Mill and start cutting siding and put all the 'learning to cut siding' up on the shoppe to make it look nicer than the black side of the lumber wrap.
Speaking of lumber wrap, I want to put a layer on the top of the mobile home which is the poultry house as there are 2 holes from where some sort of equipment used to have to go through the roof. I do not want to make too many repairs to it, since in the next 2-3 years we will be building a proper barn since this one is probably the first year they ever made mobile homes and it is rotting.
Well, the chickens and turkeys need to be let out and the hogs fed (who are getting large enough they are making me nervous to go in their pen alone. Took chicken counts and we need to butcher at least 15 in a month or so. Some of the roosters need to have their bands removed anyway as their bands are starting to get too tight on their legs and one poor rooster had a small injury from it.
Evening Update:
My new friends indeed got their place. I am excited and thrilled for them. They are new at homesteading and I will help them along as much as I can.
Today was a long, but productive day here. I got the greenhouse watered, picked a 50 foot row of Calendula and took all the petals off for soap making as I have been negligent at making us more for the last few months.
Between the 4 of us, we almost got all of the woodshed filled today. My bf and "Teenager" cut the trees up with chainsaws and then all the guys filled the trucks with the firewood. Then they bring them in from the back 40, sort them from splitting to just stack it. If it gets tossed to the doorway, I then stacked it. My bf did miss the routine.. and I got slammed in the right kneecap with a chunk of wood. Or maybe I missed the routine.. oh well.. I am not limping now.Dinner was a nice chicken Alfredo made with Mozza over spiral noodles and fresh broccoli salad out of our garden. I had some left over Leek Soup which I made yesterday-ish.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
August 11, 2006
Last weekend was spent at a medieval event for 4 days. I have been 'playing' in the SCA (Society of Creative Anachronism) for around 10 years now.I love the camping out, the rusticness of the place. The non-electricity and how to invent things like showers without having any of the regular ways to have them. The chivalry, the politeness and kindness of people. The blacksmithy, the bakery with its wood fired ovens, the new root cellar for the bakery, the merchants, including the fresh fruit and vegetable vendor. And of course the rapier and heavies fighting. The archery. The LOW TECHness of the place. Not keen on the dust though.
It is always hard for me to leave. I love the lifestyle there. It is what drew me to the medieval re-enactment. I did homesteading and the preserving of foods and tried to study groups such as the Amish and how they did things, but there is so much more open history and such in the middle ages, so when I found this SCA, I thought I had fallen into something right up my alley. I had indeed.This is where I learned my blacksmithing through. Free classes. Many classes are free or low cost. I signed up for a Bodran class and there were a few others I wanted to take, but conflicted with it.I found that both the SCA type events and homesteading went quite hand in hand. So when I am not studying homesteading per se, I go back and study agriculture from many centuries ago.
I nearly swooned when a rather slightly inebriated pirate bowed over my hand and kissed it (well not really swooned, but it was a nice compliment and he was NOT bad looking).
And then a Frenchman in courtly attire, after my friend and I had been discussing music and garb with him half the night as the drummers were drumming most of the night with bagpipe players here and there and then a nice quartet playing off in another corner.
I learned about Lampworking.. it has nothing to do with lighting or light bulbs.. it is a open flame and in this case, making the most beautiful glass beads I had ever seen. I opened my floor length skirts wide to be a wind block for the woman who was showing me how to make them. I must have stood in there for an hour and then a day later as I saw her struggling with her flame, I popped into her tent/booth and offered wind protection once again.. it was a good deal though, as I get a front row seat to see her working.
I forgot to locate the lady who handspins with a drop spindle, she had some nice fiber and natural dyes I wanted to investigate. I need to build a braiser for next year to have our own flame, as it was, I borrowed flamage from the people who sorta invaded our camp when they moved in after we 'parked', but all in all it was great as I rather enjoyed the 2 families and though we have not known each other long, I would consider them friends. Sometimes you just know from the onset that these are "YOUR" kind of people.
We ate alot of cold meals that 4 days, but it was too hot really anyway. Fresh bread from home.. cold sausages and cheeses and LOTS of water.The days were hot, but the evenings were cool. The day we left there was a bit of snow on the peaks and the night before there were the Northern Lights. Many people were from the south, so I had to make sure they saw them. They were in awe and they were not even great lights that night. (Which reminds me, I ought to look outside to check if they are out tonight).
I would like to say I did alot of productive things at the event, but I DIDN'T!! It was nice to have a vacation and the first 2 days I took 2 naps a day, so I must have needed it.
The last couple days, a couple who has been on another newsgroup I own, came up to "Moosetown" to look for property. I have gone around with them for 2 days looking for land. It is fun shopping for land for homesteading, even if it is not for your own. I rather enjoy this couple too and hope they do indeed move up here from Vancouver. They are like minded people and learning and willing to learn, so it would be nice to include them in our circle of friends.My goat must have met up with some barbed wire and she ripped her right udder. I am not pleased. I milked out her left side almost all the way, just to make her more comfortable, but to help her dry up more. She is a serious milker and will not have anything to do with drying up before October/November evidently.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
It is always hard for me to leave. I love the lifestyle there. It is what drew me to the medieval re-enactment. I did homesteading and the preserving of foods and tried to study groups such as the Amish and how they did things, but there is so much more open history and such in the middle ages, so when I found this SCA, I thought I had fallen into something right up my alley. I had indeed.This is where I learned my blacksmithing through. Free classes. Many classes are free or low cost. I signed up for a Bodran class and there were a few others I wanted to take, but conflicted with it.I found that both the SCA type events and homesteading went quite hand in hand. So when I am not studying homesteading per se, I go back and study agriculture from many centuries ago.
I nearly swooned when a rather slightly inebriated pirate bowed over my hand and kissed it (well not really swooned, but it was a nice compliment and he was NOT bad looking).
And then a Frenchman in courtly attire, after my friend and I had been discussing music and garb with him half the night as the drummers were drumming most of the night with bagpipe players here and there and then a nice quartet playing off in another corner.
I learned about Lampworking.. it has nothing to do with lighting or light bulbs.. it is a open flame and in this case, making the most beautiful glass beads I had ever seen. I opened my floor length skirts wide to be a wind block for the woman who was showing me how to make them. I must have stood in there for an hour and then a day later as I saw her struggling with her flame, I popped into her tent/booth and offered wind protection once again.. it was a good deal though, as I get a front row seat to see her working.
I forgot to locate the lady who handspins with a drop spindle, she had some nice fiber and natural dyes I wanted to investigate. I need to build a braiser for next year to have our own flame, as it was, I borrowed flamage from the people who sorta invaded our camp when they moved in after we 'parked', but all in all it was great as I rather enjoyed the 2 families and though we have not known each other long, I would consider them friends. Sometimes you just know from the onset that these are "YOUR" kind of people.
We ate alot of cold meals that 4 days, but it was too hot really anyway. Fresh bread from home.. cold sausages and cheeses and LOTS of water.The days were hot, but the evenings were cool. The day we left there was a bit of snow on the peaks and the night before there were the Northern Lights. Many people were from the south, so I had to make sure they saw them. They were in awe and they were not even great lights that night. (Which reminds me, I ought to look outside to check if they are out tonight).
I would like to say I did alot of productive things at the event, but I DIDN'T!! It was nice to have a vacation and the first 2 days I took 2 naps a day, so I must have needed it.
The last couple days, a couple who has been on another newsgroup I own, came up to "Moosetown" to look for property. I have gone around with them for 2 days looking for land. It is fun shopping for land for homesteading, even if it is not for your own. I rather enjoy this couple too and hope they do indeed move up here from Vancouver. They are like minded people and learning and willing to learn, so it would be nice to include them in our circle of friends.My goat must have met up with some barbed wire and she ripped her right udder. I am not pleased. I milked out her left side almost all the way, just to make her more comfortable, but to help her dry up more. She is a serious milker and will not have anything to do with drying up before October/November evidently.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
August 05, 2006
I will be out of the office until Sunday night or Monday. See you guys then, and have a safe fun weekend!!
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
August 05, 2006
I will be out of the office until Sunday night or Monday. See you guys then, and have a safe fun weekend!!
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
August 03, 2006
So much for sleeping from 8:30 pm last night when I went to bed. I am all curled up with my hot water bottle in my moose flannel sheets and just drifting off to sleep when I hear "One of your dog's is gone!!!".. I get out of bed, get dressed and go looking for the dog. I have been asking for someone to drive a new post for me as that was only a temporary to begin with and I am actually amazed she did not get loose sooner. She came back from the woodshed where the rabbits where, she had nipped the toe of one of them. I would have shot the dog, but I need that dog. She is my best lead dog and she is also my only unspayed female I hope to breed soon. She is now under lock and key after she got into trouble for 20 minutes with me stuffing another rabbit under her nose and telling her she is the worst dog on the face of the earth.
Too riled up and mad (at the dog and myself) to go back to sleep, I stayed up and painted more on my gate sign for eggs. Then "Kid" was jabbering and said that 'thing' in the wall was back. This is the second day that this noise has been heard by both kids and also the same length of time that the cat "Charlie" has been missing. So we opened up the access to the attic and at midnight the kids are trying to be silent while their dad is sleeping, crawling around up there. "Kid" is smaller and could fit in there better, but he wanted his big brother to go up there with him. "Teenager" lifted the ever gaining mass "Kid" up and then jumped up and pulled himself through the opening. I am thinking "Man.. if this does nor work, we have alot of sheetrocking, spackling and painting to do tomorrow".
No cat later... the boys come down and I need to vacuum. Ever try vacuuming at 1 am in a 900 sf house and not wake someone up? Apparently it CAN be done. My bf never heard it when asked this morning when he woke up to go to work. We might need naps later today, but it was a fun evening, even though we did not find "Charlie" out of all of it.
We may or may not go to the 4-H livestock auction today. I was rather interested in what the meat pens I judged yesterday, went for today.
Thinking of what I ought to cook for dinner tonight. I am leaning towards a whole roast chicken. OK.. I just inquired with the boys and they are game for the whole roast chicken as long as it is BBQ's.. I have to make some BBQ sauce, but that works for me.Fresh steamed Swiss Chard out of the garden last night for dinner. "Kid" did not realize we had "Five Color Silverbeet", the variety that has reds, greens, whites, oranges, pinks, golds and other colors in it. It is quite festive and colorful. Also quite good with butter, vinegar and sea salt on it."Teenager" and I got into the 4 cucumbers I have picked so far out of the garden. I need to look today as there is probably more ready to be picked.
The English peas have had a couple pickings on them. The Snow Peas are going to seed which is good as I needed more seed.I stole a few red Potatoes... they are much larger than I thought they would be. I will go out and see what I can raid today for dinner tonight.
Evening Updateot dinner on the go while my bf and "Kid" and 2 spare kids are out in the back 40 playing around with a free car. I have not seen nor heard from them in 20-30 minutes so my guesses are #1 they are stuck in the trout pond or #2 the lawnmower battery they have in it died and they are having to walk back.
On the menu for tonight is one of our chickens from last year (the last one I think) which was surfacing in the freezer one too many times, so it got hauled out this morning, to go with the chicken we are having freshly picked purple beans, and a medley of various colours of potatoes dug by hand out of the soil in the garden.On the chicken I must have 30 cloves fo garlic.. 1% antibiotic you know.. and besides I love the flavour of it. The onins, garlic, spuds and chicken are all nicely roasting together in the cast iron pan in the oven.Got my farm gate sign for eggs done. Trying to sand the other side, but I need bigger grit sandpaper. I had such fun painting the first side, I am just itching to work on the other side.I think I hear the car, so I will go out and check to see how they made out..
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
Too riled up and mad (at the dog and myself) to go back to sleep, I stayed up and painted more on my gate sign for eggs. Then "Kid" was jabbering and said that 'thing' in the wall was back. This is the second day that this noise has been heard by both kids and also the same length of time that the cat "Charlie" has been missing. So we opened up the access to the attic and at midnight the kids are trying to be silent while their dad is sleeping, crawling around up there. "Kid" is smaller and could fit in there better, but he wanted his big brother to go up there with him. "Teenager" lifted the ever gaining mass "Kid" up and then jumped up and pulled himself through the opening. I am thinking "Man.. if this does nor work, we have alot of sheetrocking, spackling and painting to do tomorrow".
No cat later... the boys come down and I need to vacuum. Ever try vacuuming at 1 am in a 900 sf house and not wake someone up? Apparently it CAN be done. My bf never heard it when asked this morning when he woke up to go to work. We might need naps later today, but it was a fun evening, even though we did not find "Charlie" out of all of it.
We may or may not go to the 4-H livestock auction today. I was rather interested in what the meat pens I judged yesterday, went for today.
Thinking of what I ought to cook for dinner tonight. I am leaning towards a whole roast chicken. OK.. I just inquired with the boys and they are game for the whole roast chicken as long as it is BBQ's.. I have to make some BBQ sauce, but that works for me.Fresh steamed Swiss Chard out of the garden last night for dinner. "Kid" did not realize we had "Five Color Silverbeet", the variety that has reds, greens, whites, oranges, pinks, golds and other colors in it. It is quite festive and colorful. Also quite good with butter, vinegar and sea salt on it."Teenager" and I got into the 4 cucumbers I have picked so far out of the garden. I need to look today as there is probably more ready to be picked.
The English peas have had a couple pickings on them. The Snow Peas are going to seed which is good as I needed more seed.I stole a few red Potatoes... they are much larger than I thought they would be. I will go out and see what I can raid today for dinner tonight.
Evening Updateot dinner on the go while my bf and "Kid" and 2 spare kids are out in the back 40 playing around with a free car. I have not seen nor heard from them in 20-30 minutes so my guesses are #1 they are stuck in the trout pond or #2 the lawnmower battery they have in it died and they are having to walk back.
On the menu for tonight is one of our chickens from last year (the last one I think) which was surfacing in the freezer one too many times, so it got hauled out this morning, to go with the chicken we are having freshly picked purple beans, and a medley of various colours of potatoes dug by hand out of the soil in the garden.On the chicken I must have 30 cloves fo garlic.. 1% antibiotic you know.. and besides I love the flavour of it. The onins, garlic, spuds and chicken are all nicely roasting together in the cast iron pan in the oven.Got my farm gate sign for eggs done. Trying to sand the other side, but I need bigger grit sandpaper. I had such fun painting the first side, I am just itching to work on the other side.I think I hear the car, so I will go out and check to see how they made out..
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August 02, 2006
I just got home from judging 4-H rabbit showmanship, breed classes and fryer pens today. I am pretty tired. The classes all went well I think and I feel like I did a good job. On the fryer pens.. there were only 11 this year.. there were some good ones.. I picked my Champion and Reserve Champion and asked the boys who owned them if they agreed and I was pleased that they also thought that the one pen was superior, though not by much.
The Junior class was the hardest class of the day. I had 3 girls.. who made me change my mind half a dozen times. I would think I had my Champion, Reserve Champion and then the contender.. and then they would keep flipping around. Then I would think the 3rd one was going to get Reserve and then my Champion would flounder.. it easily could have done to any of them.
The Cloverbuds.. the pre-4-H kids.. one must have been 3-4 years old.. she was the cutest thing.. she almost did not look real. I have my most fun in a way on them, although I like making the classes work as well and put them through their paces. .. I asked the Cloverbuds the basics.. how many ears.. how many feet.. the idea is just to get them to talk and get them used to being up on the table and answering questions. I had an epitomy and asked them how they liked 4-H and what they learned this year and if they would be back next year. I almost burst out laughing (and probably did) at some of the answers.
It was a good day, but I am really tired and my back really hurts tonight. Too much leaning over the judging table.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
The Junior class was the hardest class of the day. I had 3 girls.. who made me change my mind half a dozen times. I would think I had my Champion, Reserve Champion and then the contender.. and then they would keep flipping around. Then I would think the 3rd one was going to get Reserve and then my Champion would flounder.. it easily could have done to any of them.
The Cloverbuds.. the pre-4-H kids.. one must have been 3-4 years old.. she was the cutest thing.. she almost did not look real. I have my most fun in a way on them, although I like making the classes work as well and put them through their paces. .. I asked the Cloverbuds the basics.. how many ears.. how many feet.. the idea is just to get them to talk and get them used to being up on the table and answering questions. I had an epitomy and asked them how they liked 4-H and what they learned this year and if they would be back next year. I almost burst out laughing (and probably did) at some of the answers.
It was a good day, but I am really tired and my back really hurts tonight. Too much leaning over the judging table.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
July 30, 2006
After trying to get to the poultry houses for the last week, we finally got to it around 8 pm last night. It has been too hot on the days we could do it and then we were doing errands on the days it was cooler for the most part. But in about an hour both the turkeys and the chickens had new clean made houses. They were not that bad to do as I always put a bale of pine shavings down first and then a bale or two of straw in.I put the truckload of cleanings into the garden in a pile so it can be tilled into the soil when Fall comes. I was going to wait until this morning to unload, but I had the funny feeling it was going to rain and boy did it rain. I was very glad I did not have wet heavy manure in my truck when I woke up this morning.
All of us were out playing with the pigs again when my bf went up to feed them. They are sure getting big. One of them is getting tame enough that when she was laying down, she let me open her mouth so I could look inside. I guess it is the vet tech in me who wanted to see how the mouth was put together and how many teeth they had.One of them is still making that "squeaking" noise with her mouth. I have heard another one do it since. My bf thinks they are grinding their teeth. I am pretty sure it is not teeth grinding, which in animals is usually a sign of pain. It is almost a 'squish-squish-squeak' noise. It is almost, but not really like a horse who windsucks. Anyone else ever hear of this before? How do they do it? I think they are doing it when they are happy.
I need to check on birthdates for my Californian rabbit does. I think I can breed them soon, which means in November we can have rabbit meat for the table. I am not sure I REALLY want to do the next following butchering in February though. To me it is still strange to butcher out around the season as compared to when I lived in Oregon. I somehow REALLY do not want to milk or butcher January-early March.
OK.. this is the strangest phone call from my mom yet. She came up and visited me for the first time in 5 years and stayed 9 days earlier in July.
She calls last night and the first thing she says to me, is she is not sure how to say something without insulting me. Fearing the worst.. I am thinking it is probably something to do about our house or something I did. I was totally thrown for a loop when she told me to quit bleaching my teeth. "WHAT?!?!?!?!" I say to myself? I say 'WHAT' again to her.
I do not bleach my teeth I tell her and I thought they needed to be cleaned again actually (I clean my own - I am a dental hygienist for many species - including root canals after all- albeit not for humans, but it is pretty much the same thing). She was amazed I have not been bleaching them with something. I have always had comments on my nice white teeth and maybe it is just not mom seeing me for 18 months or something.
The other thing I commented it may be, is that we have calcium in our water, which may also explain why more people are commenting on my 'pretty white teeth'.. or it is due to the brands of toothpastes I use or my homemade stuff. I 'promised' her I would drink more tea or start smoking. (NOT). But I think it may be her not being used to seeing me as often as I used to get compliments on them all the time when I lived in the States.
I need to get nestboxes ready for my hens. They ought to start laying soon. I pulled the 4 hole one out and set it to get some sunlight to disinfect (sun is a very good disinfectant for animal equipment if you did not know that. Always use it for at least 24 hours after you clean with whatever you clean with - I prefer 15% solution of Clorox bleach unscented, NEVER use Lysol.. it kills rabbits).
I may also start working on my gate sign for "Eggs for Sale". This one has to be 2 sided and I am not sure if I am going to put a Barred Rock on one side and a Dark Brahma on the other, if I am going to go with 'generic chicken' on both sides. It is kinda a Tole Painting thing I am doing, though I have actually never taken a Tole Painting class or know the adzact definition for Tole Painting. Maybe I will just call it 'tenzicut style'. but I anticipate that we will be getting close to 50 dozen eggs a month when they are in full laying mode and even the "Teenager" cannot possibly chow all those down.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
All of us were out playing with the pigs again when my bf went up to feed them. They are sure getting big. One of them is getting tame enough that when she was laying down, she let me open her mouth so I could look inside. I guess it is the vet tech in me who wanted to see how the mouth was put together and how many teeth they had.One of them is still making that "squeaking" noise with her mouth. I have heard another one do it since. My bf thinks they are grinding their teeth. I am pretty sure it is not teeth grinding, which in animals is usually a sign of pain. It is almost a 'squish-squish-squeak' noise. It is almost, but not really like a horse who windsucks. Anyone else ever hear of this before? How do they do it? I think they are doing it when they are happy.
I need to check on birthdates for my Californian rabbit does. I think I can breed them soon, which means in November we can have rabbit meat for the table. I am not sure I REALLY want to do the next following butchering in February though. To me it is still strange to butcher out around the season as compared to when I lived in Oregon. I somehow REALLY do not want to milk or butcher January-early March.
OK.. this is the strangest phone call from my mom yet. She came up and visited me for the first time in 5 years and stayed 9 days earlier in July.
She calls last night and the first thing she says to me, is she is not sure how to say something without insulting me. Fearing the worst.. I am thinking it is probably something to do about our house or something I did. I was totally thrown for a loop when she told me to quit bleaching my teeth. "WHAT?!?!?!?!" I say to myself? I say 'WHAT' again to her.
I do not bleach my teeth I tell her and I thought they needed to be cleaned again actually (I clean my own - I am a dental hygienist for many species - including root canals after all- albeit not for humans, but it is pretty much the same thing). She was amazed I have not been bleaching them with something. I have always had comments on my nice white teeth and maybe it is just not mom seeing me for 18 months or something.
The other thing I commented it may be, is that we have calcium in our water, which may also explain why more people are commenting on my 'pretty white teeth'.. or it is due to the brands of toothpastes I use or my homemade stuff. I 'promised' her I would drink more tea or start smoking. (NOT). But I think it may be her not being used to seeing me as often as I used to get compliments on them all the time when I lived in the States.
I need to get nestboxes ready for my hens. They ought to start laying soon. I pulled the 4 hole one out and set it to get some sunlight to disinfect (sun is a very good disinfectant for animal equipment if you did not know that. Always use it for at least 24 hours after you clean with whatever you clean with - I prefer 15% solution of Clorox bleach unscented, NEVER use Lysol.. it kills rabbits).
I may also start working on my gate sign for "Eggs for Sale". This one has to be 2 sided and I am not sure if I am going to put a Barred Rock on one side and a Dark Brahma on the other, if I am going to go with 'generic chicken' on both sides. It is kinda a Tole Painting thing I am doing, though I have actually never taken a Tole Painting class or know the adzact definition for Tole Painting. Maybe I will just call it 'tenzicut style'. but I anticipate that we will be getting close to 50 dozen eggs a month when they are in full laying mode and even the "Teenager" cannot possibly chow all those down.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
July 27, 2006
I was busy in the kitchen again today. Make watermelon wine, watermelon sorbet, started on watermelon rind pickles. Made vanilla ice cream and lavender ice cream which are freezing at the moment. Chicken and rice with vegetables casserole for dinner. The kitchen is a disaster. But is in the works of getting some sanity back in there.
Had a man out here tonight for digging our new well. Hopefully soon we will have that water situation under control again. It will be nice to have water and not have to monitor it everyday.
Got a few new subscriptions today, I was bad today and forgot to take 2 packages to the post office. I will remedy that situation in the morning. They could not get my deer struck bumper put back on today, so I have an appointment again tomorrow. The rest of the truck looks beautiful again however.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
Had a man out here tonight for digging our new well. Hopefully soon we will have that water situation under control again. It will be nice to have water and not have to monitor it everyday.
Got a few new subscriptions today, I was bad today and forgot to take 2 packages to the post office. I will remedy that situation in the morning. They could not get my deer struck bumper put back on today, so I have an appointment again tomorrow. The rest of the truck looks beautiful again however.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
July 26, 2006
Hmmm.. ABC Television has now joined "DTTR" website. Wrote a email back to the lady who casts the show who joined our site and she emailed me and apparently this show is a real thing. Shows you how much I watch TV.. I cannot be on the TV show since I am in Canada, but I was still giggling this morning to think of what the other woman would have thought of feeding and petting pigs and milking "Crystal". I did not have any fears over this unknown person in my house or with my family, but I was concerned about some city-slicker handling my animals. 71 animals is not a small amount for a newbie to work around. And if one is 'off' or injured what a newbie would be able to do in a situation like that. The other thought I had was if she would know what to do with our pantry and if she could cook from it. It would be hard for someone who is used to going to the grocery store often, if not everyday. And no microwave foods.
It went from super hot to overcast and sprinkling. I am going to put my laundry out on the line anyway and hope for the best. Summer rain fresh?
Watermelon and blueberry wine batches are on the go. I want to make some mead next. Lavender ice cream is also in the works for today since my Lavender is going strong.Since it is cooler, cleaning the poultry houses and weeding the garden are on the agenda for the day. I had beans and corn soaking overnight and Texas style chili is on the menu for tonight.A sister of a longtime friend recently moved into the area and may get a basic lesson on how to handle horses since she is marrying a horseshoer and she wants to be part of his world and not look like such a newbie. I will start her from the ground up. Probably "Sierra" will be the guinea pig, though he is our tallest horse and she cannot be over 5'2". But "Sierra" will stand there like a rock for her.
I love FreeCycle. We have about 9 people on our local one, but we just picked up a cast iron woodstove, vintage unknown at the moment. It is pretty cute. It is for a project for the magazine one day. just wait until you see what I have planned.
The sun came out and it is warm again. I forgot to tell you guys the other night we have a reminiscent Walton's thing going the other night. We had unexpected company Friday night and we all sat on the front porch talking for an hour or two and drinking homemade lemonaide. After the unexpected company left, we continued to all sit there in the shade on the front porch. The guys started to grease and work on the logging truck, everyone else was reading various parts of the newspaper that my bf brought home and we were all listening to the comedy channel on the truck radio.I thought about how little anyone as a family sits on the porch or livingroom and all of them listen to a radio program anymore. Our TV was off, 2 cats were sitting in laps. It was a delightful summer evening. Hot, but nice.I will have to continue this when I get back from the barnyard. Apparently the pigs have uprooted their water trough and we have to re-vamp it and I need to go help.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
It went from super hot to overcast and sprinkling. I am going to put my laundry out on the line anyway and hope for the best. Summer rain fresh?
Watermelon and blueberry wine batches are on the go. I want to make some mead next. Lavender ice cream is also in the works for today since my Lavender is going strong.Since it is cooler, cleaning the poultry houses and weeding the garden are on the agenda for the day. I had beans and corn soaking overnight and Texas style chili is on the menu for tonight.A sister of a longtime friend recently moved into the area and may get a basic lesson on how to handle horses since she is marrying a horseshoer and she wants to be part of his world and not look like such a newbie. I will start her from the ground up. Probably "Sierra" will be the guinea pig, though he is our tallest horse and she cannot be over 5'2". But "Sierra" will stand there like a rock for her.
I love FreeCycle. We have about 9 people on our local one, but we just picked up a cast iron woodstove, vintage unknown at the moment. It is pretty cute. It is for a project for the magazine one day. just wait until you see what I have planned.
The sun came out and it is warm again. I forgot to tell you guys the other night we have a reminiscent Walton's thing going the other night. We had unexpected company Friday night and we all sat on the front porch talking for an hour or two and drinking homemade lemonaide. After the unexpected company left, we continued to all sit there in the shade on the front porch. The guys started to grease and work on the logging truck, everyone else was reading various parts of the newspaper that my bf brought home and we were all listening to the comedy channel on the truck radio.I thought about how little anyone as a family sits on the porch or livingroom and all of them listen to a radio program anymore. Our TV was off, 2 cats were sitting in laps. It was a delightful summer evening. Hot, but nice.I will have to continue this when I get back from the barnyard. Apparently the pigs have uprooted their water trough and we have to re-vamp it and I need to go help.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
July 25, 2006
Thunderstorms again tonight. So hot today, we did not even want to go to our normal place to go swimming and we just went to our local lake and even took "Cyrus" our bear dog for a swim.We got a little bit of rain and it cooled it off a notch or two.
This morning a friend of the family who is pretty much family, who is an older woman, came to witch us a new well. We evidently have alot of water here and it is not very deep. She says it is only 10 feet down. The well nearby is hand dug and only 36 feet deep. With 2 ponds also in the area, it is a pretty good indication there is water there. She is never wrong and always gets good water for everyone. She 'retired' from it, but because it was my bf, she could not say no. Thanks "Inga".
I am waiting for the storm to pass before I go out and water the garden. For not having watered it for 2 weeks it is looking very good. By next year I will have a dedicated well just for the garden and greenhouse, so I will not have to be frugal with it this year. I did not get to the poultry houses today as it was just too warm out, if it is cool tomorrow, I will get to it then. The straw bales are sitting right outside the doors ready to be put in.
Things in the garden which look great are Leeks, Swiss Chard, Beans, Sunflowers, Onions, and Peas. I know I will not get anywhere close to what I was anticipating for potatoes. The cabbage is suffering from the chincy water amounts. The flowers are doing great for no water and I will remember to keep those varieties. jon's Marigold mix, Lavender, Cosmos, and Calendula are looking beautiful.
5 minute later update: Did I just not say I was going to go water the garden? It has poured non-stop for the last 20 minutes and we have gotten 1.3 cm/ 0.5 inches within the last 15 minutes. It is a roar on the roof and I really do not think I will even have to water tomorrow. The driveway is a flood which is running like a muddy river and it does not look like it is going to stop anytime soon. I really do not even want to run up and lock up the chickens. I will do it later even if I have to run out there at midnight.The sky is a marigold yellow and it has been for the last hour.
Evening Update:
Hotter than Blue Blazes again today. After "Kid" and I ran our morning errands and mailed off more magazines, picked up animal feed at the farm store we came home to vegetate for a bit.The garden does not need watering after last nights storm. I may water it tonight again however.The other extent of our outdoor energy today, other than caring for stock and making sure everyone had water, was putting the clothesline (See Summer 2005 issue for the original story on that) back up, after my bf took it out with the trackhoe. "Teenager" due to his vertical advantage over the rest of us, was the one who was volunteered to help put it back up. We had to go buy more 1,100 pound test line for it. But just the 15 or 20 minutes it took to get it back in working order, was just about enough to melt us.I decided to do a 'girly' thing for myself today. Usually I always paint my toenails. I cannot paint my fingernails, nor grow them out. I do not wear makeup very often (3x a year maybe), so my thing I do to keep my femininity is wear a dress or sarong in the evenings and paint my toenails. When I did the dog sled event last January, I had done so little walking after my injury last summer, that doing 36 miles in 2 days, caused me to bruise under my toenails and I lost 4 of them. They are finally back, so it is time to pretty them up. Dinner tonight is a bison shoulder roast and vegetables. I am thinking of making Blueberry Soup. It is a cold soup, which suits the day. We have slacked the last couple days on dinner due to how hot it has been. No one has felt like eating, so we made a rare splurge and bought a pizza last night. YES.. a take out order. We do not do that very often. But it was TOO hot to cook. I still ordered a salad. Why? I have no idea, for no apparent reason, it never occurred to me to go out to the garden and get some lettuce for a salad. My brain must have been fried. *L*
I have a couple other projects on the go for the magazine in the kitchen and I am soaking 4-5 kinds of beans for making chili tomorrow night. I will probably make corn bread to go with.. and the ever present salad.Time to go rotate laundry I suppose and try out the new clothesline.
July 24, 2006
It has gone from monsoon rains back to scorching hot. After we did the morning chores, we went and played in the river for 7 hours yesterday. Never fear however, I was also working on articles for the magazine. Those will be upcoming in the Winter 2006 issue. Did you know there is usually 2-4 magazines on the go at all times? I have started writing on the Spring 2007. Sometimes an article makes more sense to have in a certain issue.. and some, like the upcoming ones can be put in any of them. It will be a fun article to do and NO! I am not telling what it is yet, but I will just let you know, I have never see either of them written in any magazine which is not geared JUST for that topic..We must have worn everyone out yesterday. It is 9:30 am and only "Kid" and I are up yet.
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CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
July 20, 2006
Picked Saskatoons today. Started another batch of wine. Got alot done on the magazine stuff and I am FINALLY all caught up. Two more stores picked up the magazine and I am pretty much out of the Summer issue. More will have to be printed so I think that is what I will be doing on Friday.
I went up to see where my bf had disappeared to this afternoon and he was up talking to his piggies. I went up there to take pictures of the animals to post here later and I went in with the pigs to take their pictures without the chain link in the way.
Going from hating me, the pigs now are too happy to see me. They keptgetting too close and all I could take a picture of was a nose or an eyeball. I asked my bf to come in and scratch them so they would go see him and leave me and my shoes alone, since they keep stuffing their noses under my shoes and knock me off balance. My bf started laughing and said they did like me now.
Yes, we will eat these guys coming this Fall, but like I have said before, we treat our animals, even the butcher animals, very well while they are here. My bf was playing with the pigs.. just as you would start playing with a dog, you evidently can do that with piggies as well. No.. none of them have names.. not even names like "Porkchop", etc. We were scratching them and even the ones who did not let me pet them before, now came up to me. One piggy forgot how to stand on her right side and lifted BOTH the front and the rear feet up on the right side (yes, same side) as evidently the scratching felt just too good. Sooo.. in order to have a 3-point system so it did not fall over on its side like the other one did for me, it put its snout on the ground to keep from falling over. Yep, it was bracing itself with its nose. (they are so low to the ground, it is hard to tell which gender which one is, so I am saying 'it').
We stayed in the pig pen for awhile, just playing and petting them and listening to them talk to us. Yes they are muddy, but not what I would call dirty. "Kid" comes in from playing and he is much muddier most of the time..Then my bf quit scratching one and it came up behind him and started to scratch himself on the back of my bf's legs. I have no idea what the deal with my tennis shoes is, but all of them just love to try to push them around or get under them with their snouts. They do not do this to anyone else's shoes
..... the hawks are back. A pair I think. So I sat out in the treeline between the triangle of the pigs, the chickens and the milkgoat. The turkeys were out again and there "Charlie" the outdoor cat and me were sitting up in the folding chair between everyone Guarding. I am glad all my animals seem to be happy. It is pretty hard when you own 71 of them. Yep, 71 animals until Fall.The chickens are happy doing their chicken things out in the chicken yard. The roosters actually do not start sparring with each other. One gets a little carried away, struts his stuff, runs around in a circle and then runs at another rooster around the same size. If he meets up with a littler one.. the bigger one backs off. Only when they are pretty evenly matched do they stop and stare at each other until one challenges the other. Nothing serious. But I think I will be glad to get rid of 14 or so roosters. I took some pictures of them today as well.
The turkeys, as they are LOUDMOUTHS, saying PIP, PIP, PIP, they call in all the predators for about 100 miles around. SO they are not being let out unsupervised until I get the overhead netting put up, which will be in a month or so, certainly by next summer. Well.. maybe sooner than later. I am not sure I want to babysit turkeys for hours a day for another three months.But I spend a couple good 3-4 hours up there today after getting other stuff done. I have not been able to do that for a long time, but it really is a great way to make sure all your animals are healthy and happy. Plus it is so peaceful.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
I went up to see where my bf had disappeared to this afternoon and he was up talking to his piggies. I went up there to take pictures of the animals to post here later and I went in with the pigs to take their pictures without the chain link in the way.
Going from hating me, the pigs now are too happy to see me. They keptgetting too close and all I could take a picture of was a nose or an eyeball. I asked my bf to come in and scratch them so they would go see him and leave me and my shoes alone, since they keep stuffing their noses under my shoes and knock me off balance. My bf started laughing and said they did like me now.
Yes, we will eat these guys coming this Fall, but like I have said before, we treat our animals, even the butcher animals, very well while they are here. My bf was playing with the pigs.. just as you would start playing with a dog, you evidently can do that with piggies as well. No.. none of them have names.. not even names like "Porkchop", etc. We were scratching them and even the ones who did not let me pet them before, now came up to me. One piggy forgot how to stand on her right side and lifted BOTH the front and the rear feet up on the right side (yes, same side) as evidently the scratching felt just too good. Sooo.. in order to have a 3-point system so it did not fall over on its side like the other one did for me, it put its snout on the ground to keep from falling over. Yep, it was bracing itself with its nose. (they are so low to the ground, it is hard to tell which gender which one is, so I am saying 'it').
We stayed in the pig pen for awhile, just playing and petting them and listening to them talk to us. Yes they are muddy, but not what I would call dirty. "Kid" comes in from playing and he is much muddier most of the time..Then my bf quit scratching one and it came up behind him and started to scratch himself on the back of my bf's legs. I have no idea what the deal with my tennis shoes is, but all of them just love to try to push them around or get under them with their snouts. They do not do this to anyone else's shoes
..... the hawks are back. A pair I think. So I sat out in the treeline between the triangle of the pigs, the chickens and the milkgoat. The turkeys were out again and there "Charlie" the outdoor cat and me were sitting up in the folding chair between everyone Guarding. I am glad all my animals seem to be happy. It is pretty hard when you own 71 of them. Yep, 71 animals until Fall.The chickens are happy doing their chicken things out in the chicken yard. The roosters actually do not start sparring with each other. One gets a little carried away, struts his stuff, runs around in a circle and then runs at another rooster around the same size. If he meets up with a littler one.. the bigger one backs off. Only when they are pretty evenly matched do they stop and stare at each other until one challenges the other. Nothing serious. But I think I will be glad to get rid of 14 or so roosters. I took some pictures of them today as well.
The turkeys, as they are LOUDMOUTHS, saying PIP, PIP, PIP, they call in all the predators for about 100 miles around. SO they are not being let out unsupervised until I get the overhead netting put up, which will be in a month or so, certainly by next summer. Well.. maybe sooner than later. I am not sure I want to babysit turkeys for hours a day for another three months.But I spend a couple good 3-4 hours up there today after getting other stuff done. I have not been able to do that for a long time, but it really is a great way to make sure all your animals are healthy and happy. Plus it is so peaceful.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
July 19, 2006
Another long day.. it is nearly 11 pm now and I am just getting to write for the day.I was in charge the fresh food buyers co-op again today. It is obvious that gardens are growing and people are getting local stuff from the few farmers around. We went from 66 boxes last month to 23 this month.Did chores around here and then I got a bee in my bonnet about making pesto tonight..
Get out your food processor and make some for your own..
Take 6 handfuls of Basil.. I mixed mine tonight, even added Purple
3-4 Garlic cloves
half a handful or so of Walnuts
a pinch of Salt and about 1/2 to 3/4 cup of Olive Oil
Turn on your food processor or blender or you can even use a knife or a Mortar & Pestle and crush all the ingredients and slowly drizzle in the olive oil.This is great on homemade bagels (Summer 2005 issue) or on angel hair pasta and my friend who is staying the night tonight, used a bunch of it on her egg sandwich she just made.My favorite is on a bagel with avocado, tomato, alfalfa sprouts, and our goat cheese.. toasted or not toasted.. OH.. and sunflower seeds on it.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
Get out your food processor and make some for your own..
Take 6 handfuls of Basil.. I mixed mine tonight, even added Purple
3-4 Garlic cloves
half a handful or so of Walnuts
a pinch of Salt and about 1/2 to 3/4 cup of Olive Oil
Turn on your food processor or blender or you can even use a knife or a Mortar & Pestle and crush all the ingredients and slowly drizzle in the olive oil.This is great on homemade bagels (Summer 2005 issue) or on angel hair pasta and my friend who is staying the night tonight, used a bunch of it on her egg sandwich she just made.My favorite is on a bagel with avocado, tomato, alfalfa sprouts, and our goat cheese.. toasted or not toasted.. OH.. and sunflower seeds on it.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
July 18, 2006
I am not sure where I left off on my last post on this ole blog o' mine.My garden is going gangbusters after all that rain.. we ate fresh snow peas out of the garden for dinner last night. A full colander/strainer full was GONE! Just lightly steamed with a tidge of butter. Even I ate them and I am not a legume fan. Actually I like the snow peas, I am just not a fan of English Shell Peas.. probably a holdover from having to eat canned green peas when I was little. I am sure if I opened up my mind and just sat in the garden with the orange tabby cat "Charlie", who is my constant companion out there, and maybe even share some with "Charlie", I would actually enjoy them.
Cut some wonderful colours of lettuce for my bf's mom and took it fresh to her this morning. FINALLY got the last of the re-prints done and they are being sent off to be stapled and trimmed tomorrow.
Wednesday we are rearranging the 3-hole rabbit cage and putting it in a different part of the woodshed so we can start bringing in wood for winter.I do not remember if I mentioned we got our last batch of wine bottled. I bought another primary fermentor today so I can get a batch of beer, Saskatoon Wine and mead going. Though I actually am rare to drink alcohol, I am fun building stuff for others to enjoy. It give me something to do in the kitchen before the harvest comes in for me to start canning, drying and freezing. We had a pair of hawks eyeing the turkeys and chickens today. After the one turkey attack and 3 chickens AWOL (probably dead), no one went outside today as I was not home to watch the situation at all.
We seem to have a spare cat this evening. "Teenager" went to go get his gf's animals from the pound where they were being held as a emergency shelter as she was right in the evacuation zone from the wildfires. They brought the animals here to pick up her laundry (her family does not have a washer/dryer) and the cat got out of the cage and is out in the bush somewhere. We will keep an eye out for him. Hopefully we can catch him soon. I probably need to go get my gosling out of the greenhouse.. though the cat can not get in, it is not impossible that he could get in if he tried very hard.
Dinner tonight was some sort of pork sweet and sour with ALOT of red pepper flakes in it from my "Thai Hot" pepper plant I grew a year or so ago and brown rice.. it was HOT and delicious.. I got a little carried away with the pepper flakes.. THAT will certainly burn the whatever-cold-it-felt-like-I-was-coming-down-with out..I did not see our piggies for a couple days as someone else fed them. I cannot believe how much they have grown in 48 hours. We changed their bedding and added a new bale of straw and they loved us for it. They are such funny creatures. I now understand how my bf likes pigs. They are starting to talk to me now and the one female still likes to be scratched, especially behind her ears. I have not gotten her to fall over on her side again though. We save up all our vegetable and fruit scraps for them and they get goodies every day. Yesterday morning though, I just fed them grain and they looked at me like "Ummm.... WHERE IS OUR FOOD!".. they were quite miffed. I have a lawn chair up there now to watch them now on a sunny day. Last night, the house was being too 'man-ly" (translation = PHEW!!!), so I went outside to go ride my mare for the first time since the accident and instead my bf's horse, a nice huge paint gelding (the one on the Summer 2006 issue), started to talk to me and was closest.. so he was the one who was caught up and I rode him for the first time ever. MAN.. is that horse smooth.. soft mouth.. does what you ask him.. stayed in a trot the whole time I asked him. My bf is afraid I am going to steal his horse.. though it is tempting, I will keep my little mare. One of these days I will get back on her, hopefully next weekend as I have people to ride with. It is not that I am afraid to get back on her, if I was physically able I would have gotten back on her the next day, but I know my balance is not what it usually is and I do not want to be caught sitting light as she is a horse that jumps first and asks questions later.
Tomorrow we are going to pick alot of Saskatoon's and then work on a project for the Fall issue.. and NOPE.. it has nothing to do with the Saskatoons.. we are just going to grab materials for the project while we are out there. "Kid" is going to help me build them, as this project is for kids of all ages Goodnight everyone...
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
Cut some wonderful colours of lettuce for my bf's mom and took it fresh to her this morning. FINALLY got the last of the re-prints done and they are being sent off to be stapled and trimmed tomorrow.
Wednesday we are rearranging the 3-hole rabbit cage and putting it in a different part of the woodshed so we can start bringing in wood for winter.I do not remember if I mentioned we got our last batch of wine bottled. I bought another primary fermentor today so I can get a batch of beer, Saskatoon Wine and mead going. Though I actually am rare to drink alcohol, I am fun building stuff for others to enjoy. It give me something to do in the kitchen before the harvest comes in for me to start canning, drying and freezing. We had a pair of hawks eyeing the turkeys and chickens today. After the one turkey attack and 3 chickens AWOL (probably dead), no one went outside today as I was not home to watch the situation at all.
We seem to have a spare cat this evening. "Teenager" went to go get his gf's animals from the pound where they were being held as a emergency shelter as she was right in the evacuation zone from the wildfires. They brought the animals here to pick up her laundry (her family does not have a washer/dryer) and the cat got out of the cage and is out in the bush somewhere. We will keep an eye out for him. Hopefully we can catch him soon. I probably need to go get my gosling out of the greenhouse.. though the cat can not get in, it is not impossible that he could get in if he tried very hard.
Dinner tonight was some sort of pork sweet and sour with ALOT of red pepper flakes in it from my "Thai Hot" pepper plant I grew a year or so ago and brown rice.. it was HOT and delicious.. I got a little carried away with the pepper flakes.. THAT will certainly burn the whatever-cold-it-felt-like-I-was-coming-down-with out..I did not see our piggies for a couple days as someone else fed them. I cannot believe how much they have grown in 48 hours. We changed their bedding and added a new bale of straw and they loved us for it. They are such funny creatures. I now understand how my bf likes pigs. They are starting to talk to me now and the one female still likes to be scratched, especially behind her ears. I have not gotten her to fall over on her side again though. We save up all our vegetable and fruit scraps for them and they get goodies every day. Yesterday morning though, I just fed them grain and they looked at me like "Ummm.... WHERE IS OUR FOOD!".. they were quite miffed. I have a lawn chair up there now to watch them now on a sunny day. Last night, the house was being too 'man-ly" (translation = PHEW!!!), so I went outside to go ride my mare for the first time since the accident and instead my bf's horse, a nice huge paint gelding (the one on the Summer 2006 issue), started to talk to me and was closest.. so he was the one who was caught up and I rode him for the first time ever. MAN.. is that horse smooth.. soft mouth.. does what you ask him.. stayed in a trot the whole time I asked him. My bf is afraid I am going to steal his horse.. though it is tempting, I will keep my little mare. One of these days I will get back on her, hopefully next weekend as I have people to ride with. It is not that I am afraid to get back on her, if I was physically able I would have gotten back on her the next day, but I know my balance is not what it usually is and I do not want to be caught sitting light as she is a horse that jumps first and asks questions later.
Tomorrow we are going to pick alot of Saskatoon's and then work on a project for the Fall issue.. and NOPE.. it has nothing to do with the Saskatoons.. we are just going to grab materials for the project while we are out there. "Kid" is going to help me build them, as this project is for kids of all ages Goodnight everyone...
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
July 14, 2006
We are still toying with the idea of going off grid here and I just came across this interesting wind calculator. I do not know how well this calculator works yet, but thought it was noteworthy enough to pass along. It opens weird, but it works. Rain Rain Rain Rain here.. we went from one extreme to the other. We have running streams of water running down the driveway and 3 pools in the middle of my new lawn. THAT will be needing to be remedied and slope it down a tidge to the ravine.
I am taking it easy today. I can feel myself getting run down. I am chilled as well. I have entertained the idea of lighting a small fire in the woodstove, but my brain keeps thinking "But it is July!!".. still I am chilled and not keen on taking a bath until it warms up. I think I will drag out my hot water bottle though.
I am thinking on Chicken Cordon Bleu for dinner, but then I am also thinking on something different like Lemon & Almonds, but I also got this HOT & SPICY cookbook at the thrift shoppe yesterday that I may just poke into and see if there is anything exciting for dinner tonight. I think spicy is something which may warm me up. The garden is loving all this water and my Purple beans are blooming. Peas are ready to pick this week I think. Onions are growing great and I was a looser with not hilling my potatoes this year. We shall see what I get. My herbs are showboating however. I love my Basils!!
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
I am taking it easy today. I can feel myself getting run down. I am chilled as well. I have entertained the idea of lighting a small fire in the woodstove, but my brain keeps thinking "But it is July!!".. still I am chilled and not keen on taking a bath until it warms up. I think I will drag out my hot water bottle though.
I am thinking on Chicken Cordon Bleu for dinner, but then I am also thinking on something different like Lemon & Almonds, but I also got this HOT & SPICY cookbook at the thrift shoppe yesterday that I may just poke into and see if there is anything exciting for dinner tonight. I think spicy is something which may warm me up. The garden is loving all this water and my Purple beans are blooming. Peas are ready to pick this week I think. Onions are growing great and I was a looser with not hilling my potatoes this year. We shall see what I get. My herbs are showboating however. I love my Basils!!
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
July 12, 2006
I took some time for myself last evening, it has been a wild and crazy week and I wanted some quiet. When I went up to feed the piggies tonight, I set the 5 gallon bucket down and sat on it in the pig yard with them. I have not got to spend very much time with them since they have been here. They are funny little things.. well moderate sized now. After their initial horror of someone staying in their pen longer than just merely feeding them, they finally got curious and came to see me. One of the girls was brave enough to let me touch her and I started scratching behind her ears. As she got closer to me, she really appreciated her back being done, and then I started really scratching her side.. and she promptly forgot she had legs and fell over on her side. Then she came back for more ear scratching and when I refused, she started to root under my tennis shoe.. then the other pig started munching on my shoe.
None of the other ones would let me touch them however. One of the others makes a funny whooshing noise and then I think the one I was scratching did it as well.. kinda a slurping/whooshing noise.. so much for "OINK". Aren't pigs supposed to say "Oink"?Well, I am off to do the morning chores and then go and work on the magazine at my 'other office'.
Evening Update:
I am NOT happy with the Canadian Mail Service. A few more magazines have not shown up. I think if I am paying postage, no matter how large nor how small, they ought to be required to deliver it or track it down. I have to go to the Post Office again today to see what I can do about this. I am frustrated and getting mad.
In the good news category, it has rained each and every day. I am now cold each and every day, but we need this for the firefighters to get a handle on these wildfires. Animals are still moving around and my dogs were flipping out all night, but just as my bf was getting home last night, he saw our HUGE black bear "VW". We thought he had moved on as we have not seen him for some weeks. My bf was driving his pickup and almost hit him actually. I asked how large the beast was as we have been pretty far away from his thus far. My bf said that "VW" is well over the hood of his truck when he is on all 4's. At that size, I am not convinced he is a black bear, more like a dark Grizzly? I would think that my bf would know to look for the hump on his shoulders.
Got our first batch of wine bottled up last night. Yes, it will be in an upcoming issue at some point. Maybe in the winter issue. I was raised on a vineyard, but I have never gotten to do it all on my own from start to finish before. I was always 'serf labour' before. My family harvested 3-8 tons of grapes a year from our vineyard, but my father and my brother did all the 'scientific stuff'. I think it is odd that I make wine and liqueurs and things when I do not drink, but I am making it for friends and family. I thought I was odd until I went to get a couple supplies from a winemakers shoppe and when I mentioned that I do not drink to the owner, she said, she did not drink either, as she is diabetic. THAT I thought was interesting that the owner of a wine shoppe did not drink, whatever the reason. "Kid" is here and interested in the bottling of the wine, but as it requires a "GADGET".. he loved corking them. However on 'offtime' he was putting corks in the floor corker and shouting "FIRE!!" and the cork would go bouncing across the kitchen floor. HeheheheheSince I have been up since 4 am, I had better go get a little more sleep, I have alot to do today.Everyone have a good one!!
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
None of the other ones would let me touch them however. One of the others makes a funny whooshing noise and then I think the one I was scratching did it as well.. kinda a slurping/whooshing noise.. so much for "OINK". Aren't pigs supposed to say "Oink"?Well, I am off to do the morning chores and then go and work on the magazine at my 'other office'.
Evening Update:
I am NOT happy with the Canadian Mail Service. A few more magazines have not shown up. I think if I am paying postage, no matter how large nor how small, they ought to be required to deliver it or track it down. I have to go to the Post Office again today to see what I can do about this. I am frustrated and getting mad.
In the good news category, it has rained each and every day. I am now cold each and every day, but we need this for the firefighters to get a handle on these wildfires. Animals are still moving around and my dogs were flipping out all night, but just as my bf was getting home last night, he saw our HUGE black bear "VW". We thought he had moved on as we have not seen him for some weeks. My bf was driving his pickup and almost hit him actually. I asked how large the beast was as we have been pretty far away from his thus far. My bf said that "VW" is well over the hood of his truck when he is on all 4's. At that size, I am not convinced he is a black bear, more like a dark Grizzly? I would think that my bf would know to look for the hump on his shoulders.
Got our first batch of wine bottled up last night. Yes, it will be in an upcoming issue at some point. Maybe in the winter issue. I was raised on a vineyard, but I have never gotten to do it all on my own from start to finish before. I was always 'serf labour' before. My family harvested 3-8 tons of grapes a year from our vineyard, but my father and my brother did all the 'scientific stuff'. I think it is odd that I make wine and liqueurs and things when I do not drink, but I am making it for friends and family. I thought I was odd until I went to get a couple supplies from a winemakers shoppe and when I mentioned that I do not drink to the owner, she said, she did not drink either, as she is diabetic. THAT I thought was interesting that the owner of a wine shoppe did not drink, whatever the reason. "Kid" is here and interested in the bottling of the wine, but as it requires a "GADGET".. he loved corking them. However on 'offtime' he was putting corks in the floor corker and shouting "FIRE!!" and the cork would go bouncing across the kitchen floor. HeheheheheSince I have been up since 4 am, I had better go get a little more sleep, I have alot to do today.Everyone have a good one!!
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about!!
July 11, 2006
I have been craving chinese food.. but to feed all of us, it is expensive, the chinese food here in town is just passable and they do not have Szechuan. Usually most chinese restraunts only have Cantonese style.I am going to make Kung Pao Chicken, Fried Rice and Steamed Pork Buns which I love and do not get very often at all, like every 5 years, so I am making them today.. and I thought I would share the recipe (and make sure I could find it again easily *wink*)
Steamed Pork Bun Dough
1 cup plain flour
1/2 Tbs baking powder
1 Tbs caster sugar
about 1/3 cup milk
1 tsp vinegara pinch of salt
Filling:
150g Chinese roast pork
finely diced
2 Tbs chopped spring onions
1/2 Tbs vegetable oil
1 Tbs hoisin sauce
1 Tbs oyster sauce
1 tsp caster sugar
2 tsp cornflour
2 Tbs cold water
Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl, stir in the sugar. Add milk mixed with
vinegar and knead to a fairly soft dough. Cover and rest for 1/2 an hour.Filling:Stir-fry the pork with the spring onions in the oil. Add the sauces and sugar, then thicken with cornflour mixed with water.
Divide dough into 10 - 12 portions and mould each one into a smooth ball. Roll out on a lightly floured surface to a 10 cm circle and moisten the edges slightly with water put a heaped teaspoonful of the filling in the centre of the circle and gather the edges together folding and pleating to make a neat join. Twist dough to seal. Place each bun, join-side up on a small square of greaseproof paper Place in a bamboo steamer, not too close and steam for 10 - 15 minutes (adding a little vinegar to the water will help to keep the buns white).
Serve warm.
I do not have bamboo steamers anymore, but I do have an electric one.. so I will be using that tonight.. and probably my breadmaker to knead the dough. Let me know if anyone else makes this and how it turned out. I have used a recipe similar to this, though I have not used this one before.
Evening Update:
I just got done with a chicken head count to see what the chick order brought us, now that they are feathered out well and getting combs..
17 Plymouth Barred Rock Roosters
10 Plymouth Barred Rock Hens
4 Dark Brahma Roosters
5 Dark Brahma Hens
3 Rhode Island Red
Rhode Island Red Hens
Which means I am missing 2 Dark Brahma and 1 Rhode Island Red. I have no clue where they are or when they disappeared. I am presuming predators got them or they somehow managed to clear the 7 ft fence.
So for our Fall butchering for chickens, 19 will go in the freezer. I am a little upset where those 2 other Dark Brahmas went. If the hens are laying well in August, I think I will set some and get a December butchering as well.
Once again it poured this morning and just a second ago when I went out to do the chicken count and move the goat. We really needed the rain the clouds have brought the last couple of days.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about
Steamed Pork Bun Dough
1 cup plain flour
1/2 Tbs baking powder
1 Tbs caster sugar
about 1/3 cup milk
1 tsp vinegara pinch of salt
Filling:
150g Chinese roast pork
finely diced
2 Tbs chopped spring onions
1/2 Tbs vegetable oil
1 Tbs hoisin sauce
1 Tbs oyster sauce
1 tsp caster sugar
2 tsp cornflour
2 Tbs cold water
Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl, stir in the sugar. Add milk mixed with
vinegar and knead to a fairly soft dough. Cover and rest for 1/2 an hour.Filling:Stir-fry the pork with the spring onions in the oil. Add the sauces and sugar, then thicken with cornflour mixed with water.
Divide dough into 10 - 12 portions and mould each one into a smooth ball. Roll out on a lightly floured surface to a 10 cm circle and moisten the edges slightly with water put a heaped teaspoonful of the filling in the centre of the circle and gather the edges together folding and pleating to make a neat join. Twist dough to seal. Place each bun, join-side up on a small square of greaseproof paper Place in a bamboo steamer, not too close and steam for 10 - 15 minutes (adding a little vinegar to the water will help to keep the buns white).
Serve warm.
I do not have bamboo steamers anymore, but I do have an electric one.. so I will be using that tonight.. and probably my breadmaker to knead the dough. Let me know if anyone else makes this and how it turned out. I have used a recipe similar to this, though I have not used this one before.
Evening Update:
I just got done with a chicken head count to see what the chick order brought us, now that they are feathered out well and getting combs..
17 Plymouth Barred Rock Roosters
10 Plymouth Barred Rock Hens
4 Dark Brahma Roosters
5 Dark Brahma Hens
3 Rhode Island Red
Rhode Island Red Hens
Which means I am missing 2 Dark Brahma and 1 Rhode Island Red. I have no clue where they are or when they disappeared. I am presuming predators got them or they somehow managed to clear the 7 ft fence.
So for our Fall butchering for chickens, 19 will go in the freezer. I am a little upset where those 2 other Dark Brahmas went. If the hens are laying well in August, I think I will set some and get a December butchering as well.
Once again it poured this morning and just a second ago when I went out to do the chicken count and move the goat. We really needed the rain the clouds have brought the last couple of days.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about
July 10, 2006
Thanks again to all those who have been worried about us. We have had MUCH cooler temperatures, the difference being that it is still warm, but I feel cold, so I am wearing sweatshirts and sweatpants and wrapped in blankets at night when I was working on the computer until 2 am this morning.
Each day for the last couple days it has been raining, which has cooled things down and raised the humidity. One fire has slowed and actually turned back into itself so they can get a handle on it now. There are conflicting reports of how many firefighters there are out there.. somewhere between 80-500.. better than the NONE we had for a week.It is supposed to rain all week. The fires are still there, but not any interface ones (ones that interfere with people) and the evacuation zones have been lifted and roads reopened. I am going to kick the horses back into the back 40. The land which has been burnt is about 60,000 acres and animals are still pushing through our property, setting the dogs off every 30-60 minutes all day and all night long. We can no longer smell the smoke nor see it.
When the Teenager got home from working in the next town for a week, he wanted to know why his bedroom smelled like smoked jerky.. he was amazed when he was told it was from the fires.More thunderstorms are in the works this week, but at least we do not have the 90-100F temperatures which we had had for a week or more prior.Thankfully, it sounds like not a single building was burnt and we have not heard of any injuries. The firefighters that Linda (?) reported on being killed, I have not heard about.. it may have been a different district.All in all, it was a good experience to go through, like a test run.. so in case it ever happens again (and I am sure it will, just due to where we live), we have a better idea of what do do for the 'practice'.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" magazine is all about
Each day for the last couple days it has been raining, which has cooled things down and raised the humidity. One fire has slowed and actually turned back into itself so they can get a handle on it now. There are conflicting reports of how many firefighters there are out there.. somewhere between 80-500.. better than the NONE we had for a week.It is supposed to rain all week. The fires are still there, but not any interface ones (ones that interfere with people) and the evacuation zones have been lifted and roads reopened. I am going to kick the horses back into the back 40. The land which has been burnt is about 60,000 acres and animals are still pushing through our property, setting the dogs off every 30-60 minutes all day and all night long. We can no longer smell the smoke nor see it.
When the Teenager got home from working in the next town for a week, he wanted to know why his bedroom smelled like smoked jerky.. he was amazed when he was told it was from the fires.More thunderstorms are in the works this week, but at least we do not have the 90-100F temperatures which we had had for a week or more prior.Thankfully, it sounds like not a single building was burnt and we have not heard of any injuries. The firefighters that Linda (?) reported on being killed, I have not heard about.. it may have been a different district.All in all, it was a good experience to go through, like a test run.. so in case it ever happens again (and I am sure it will, just due to where we live), we have a better idea of what do do for the 'practice'.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" magazine is all about
Friday, March 16, 2007
July 9, 2006
I woke up around 2 am to listen to the lovely sound of rain on our cabin roof...maybe that will help the fire situation as well. I do not know how long it rained for, but it cooled things off again.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about
July 08, 2006
Thank you to everyone who has been emailing both myself and jon to check up on us..
This is the fire update...
It rained last night as well as a severe thunderstorm. The rains did not do alot for the fire directly, but indirectly, the air temperatures went from 41C to 14C within 2 hours.. so it cooled things off immensely and the humidity is up, so it will slow the fire. However, the thunderstorms probably produced alot more spot fires. On our way back from my friend "A"'s place which is even closer to the fires than we are.. we went as far as we could until the road block and the fire is still 7 miles from her place. I am 12 miles from "A"'s cabin. So we have an approximate 19 mile buffer between us and the fire/s.
On our way back to my house last night, we reported a spot fire probably caused by the lightening storm. They were going to go out and investigate it today.
We have 2 main fires to be concerned about, though there are over 100 wildfires started since last Monday in our district. The largest one is about 50,000 acres and the other one is about 23,000 acres.. the smaller one is the one closet to us and it is holding. The other one is out of control and wicked enough they are not fighting it. They are letting it burn as it is not an interface fire (bothering humans). They just got firefighters last night and today on the one closer to us.There still is nothing on the news or in the papers about us.. even the government website has not updated in a couple days. My bf's aunt works at the forestry and we are getting most of our info from her, she calls us and updates us twice daily..
We are 2 miles outside the 2 hour evacuation warning zone. We are prepared to be out of here, including livestock within that time. We brought the horses to the front pasture and tossed round bales in there for them to eat so we do not have to deal with finding them in the back 40. The chickens all have their right wing trimmed as the place we have planned to move them to, only has a 5 ft fence and these guys have cleared the 7 ft fence here. Cages are ready to put them into in case we need to leave.
We have located places to store the goat, cats, rabbit, goose, chickens, turkeys, sleddogs, hogs and horses. No one will be left behind. We have stocktrailers and trucks in our driveway on standby. We have a place to stay if need be.
I have my magazine stuff, computer, irreplaceable books, pictures and my seed bag all ready to go as well as personal bug out bags for us, like with clothes, toothbrushes ect.. they are on the living room floor and we have been walking around them for a couple days. We would also take Teenagers electric guitars and Kid's PS2. Pretty much everything else will have to take its chances. We do have several natural firebreaks here, so the odds are in our favour.
The horribly strong winds have been heading our way, but the closer fire is burning back into itself, so that is a great thing.. it will make it easier to control. It is ZERO percent contained currently. Neither of the fires are.
Blessings with the wildfires is... that they are not effecting homes yet, only bushland forests which have so much bug kill in them, it will help clean the forest and also make next year a lesser of a fire hazard for us. Morel mushrooms are certain to sprout up next year and Fireweed will be one of the first things to bloom. If you have never had Fireweed honey. It is a rare treat.. pure water clear it is , with a light taste.It could be way worse.. so I am not complaining about the fire situation as it is..It is nice today as we are not breathing smoke for the 1st time since Monday. I just got an update on the wildfire we reported last night and it has doubled in size.
Evening Update:
Stayed near home again today. Puttered out in the garden and got some weeding done, since I have neglected that chore for about 2 weeks, it was not nearly as bad as it would have been without the new watering system we set up. With no rains and water only going where it needed to go, the weeds were minimal. With 3 of us, the weeding chore only took about an hour. One pea and one raspberry sorta were weeded out.. and there was alot of calling to me to ID each weed for sure.. well not each weed.. but alot of them.I think I mentioned our well is not up to what we require of it, so we will be drilling a new well. I have basically not watered my garden for 2 weeks so we can have water in the house. I water the greenhouse every 3-5 days.. surprisingly enough nothing has died and it is actually looking very good even though we have had such ugly heat there for awhile. The peas are starting to set pods, the cukes flowers and the lettuce is looking delicious and ready to pick tomorrow. When we get a new well, the current well will be deeded as the garden well.I got a 3 hour nap this afternoon... probably well deserved. I went to read to do a little reseach and I woke up with the cat perched on my hip as I lay on my side.. better than my head I guess.
Since I slept until well past dinnertime, homemade ravioli was not in the equasion, so I made a one pot meal of rice, veggies and chicken which was not the delicious dinner we had been hoping to have, but all in all it was quite tasty. We had been drooling over the thought of homemade Ravioli all day.The fires are slowing compared to the constant doubling for days.. today was the first day we have not breathed smoke since Monday.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about
This is the fire update...
It rained last night as well as a severe thunderstorm. The rains did not do alot for the fire directly, but indirectly, the air temperatures went from 41C to 14C within 2 hours.. so it cooled things off immensely and the humidity is up, so it will slow the fire. However, the thunderstorms probably produced alot more spot fires. On our way back from my friend "A"'s place which is even closer to the fires than we are.. we went as far as we could until the road block and the fire is still 7 miles from her place. I am 12 miles from "A"'s cabin. So we have an approximate 19 mile buffer between us and the fire/s.
On our way back to my house last night, we reported a spot fire probably caused by the lightening storm. They were going to go out and investigate it today.
We have 2 main fires to be concerned about, though there are over 100 wildfires started since last Monday in our district. The largest one is about 50,000 acres and the other one is about 23,000 acres.. the smaller one is the one closet to us and it is holding. The other one is out of control and wicked enough they are not fighting it. They are letting it burn as it is not an interface fire (bothering humans). They just got firefighters last night and today on the one closer to us.There still is nothing on the news or in the papers about us.. even the government website has not updated in a couple days. My bf's aunt works at the forestry and we are getting most of our info from her, she calls us and updates us twice daily..
We are 2 miles outside the 2 hour evacuation warning zone. We are prepared to be out of here, including livestock within that time. We brought the horses to the front pasture and tossed round bales in there for them to eat so we do not have to deal with finding them in the back 40. The chickens all have their right wing trimmed as the place we have planned to move them to, only has a 5 ft fence and these guys have cleared the 7 ft fence here. Cages are ready to put them into in case we need to leave.
We have located places to store the goat, cats, rabbit, goose, chickens, turkeys, sleddogs, hogs and horses. No one will be left behind. We have stocktrailers and trucks in our driveway on standby. We have a place to stay if need be.
I have my magazine stuff, computer, irreplaceable books, pictures and my seed bag all ready to go as well as personal bug out bags for us, like with clothes, toothbrushes ect.. they are on the living room floor and we have been walking around them for a couple days. We would also take Teenagers electric guitars and Kid's PS2. Pretty much everything else will have to take its chances. We do have several natural firebreaks here, so the odds are in our favour.
The horribly strong winds have been heading our way, but the closer fire is burning back into itself, so that is a great thing.. it will make it easier to control. It is ZERO percent contained currently. Neither of the fires are.
Blessings with the wildfires is... that they are not effecting homes yet, only bushland forests which have so much bug kill in them, it will help clean the forest and also make next year a lesser of a fire hazard for us. Morel mushrooms are certain to sprout up next year and Fireweed will be one of the first things to bloom. If you have never had Fireweed honey. It is a rare treat.. pure water clear it is , with a light taste.It could be way worse.. so I am not complaining about the fire situation as it is..It is nice today as we are not breathing smoke for the 1st time since Monday. I just got an update on the wildfire we reported last night and it has doubled in size.
Evening Update:
Stayed near home again today. Puttered out in the garden and got some weeding done, since I have neglected that chore for about 2 weeks, it was not nearly as bad as it would have been without the new watering system we set up. With no rains and water only going where it needed to go, the weeds were minimal. With 3 of us, the weeding chore only took about an hour. One pea and one raspberry sorta were weeded out.. and there was alot of calling to me to ID each weed for sure.. well not each weed.. but alot of them.I think I mentioned our well is not up to what we require of it, so we will be drilling a new well. I have basically not watered my garden for 2 weeks so we can have water in the house. I water the greenhouse every 3-5 days.. surprisingly enough nothing has died and it is actually looking very good even though we have had such ugly heat there for awhile. The peas are starting to set pods, the cukes flowers and the lettuce is looking delicious and ready to pick tomorrow. When we get a new well, the current well will be deeded as the garden well.I got a 3 hour nap this afternoon... probably well deserved. I went to read to do a little reseach and I woke up with the cat perched on my hip as I lay on my side.. better than my head I guess.
Since I slept until well past dinnertime, homemade ravioli was not in the equasion, so I made a one pot meal of rice, veggies and chicken which was not the delicious dinner we had been hoping to have, but all in all it was quite tasty. We had been drooling over the thought of homemade Ravioli all day.The fires are slowing compared to the constant doubling for days.. today was the first day we have not breathed smoke since Monday.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about
July 07, 2006
Smoke is yucky here. It was so hot last night we had to keep the windows open and this morning it is unbearable to breathe outside almost and we had to shut the windows again. It just smells like a really intense campfire, but this is about a million times that size or better.We are starting to prepare to leave. We are not going to leave until we have to.. when we get a notice. It is still 35 km from here, but since we have to grab the stock trailers from 40 minutes away, one way, we are bringing it here so we have it. Picture: Smoke from the fires viewed from our front porch from one of thelittle fires of 100 wildfires this week. This is not the one we were worried about. The bad ones were the opposite direction from this one and we could not see them due to the lay of the land.
We also took an hour this morning to clip right wings on the chickens as they are almost being able to clear a 7 foot fence and if they have to get moved, the other fence is only 5 feet high. They do not have enough weight yet and they can fly pretty good now. I will do the turkeys when and if we have to move them. There are only 5 VS the 51 chickens. I culled out a few more birds on the chickens so it was a good thing to handle them. I pulled their legs bands. Thus far I have culled for a Rhode Island Red hen with a weird congenetive eye problem in both eyes and then Plymouth Barred Rock roosters with crooked or broken toes. The rest of the roosters I am going to cull the light ones and keep the 2 largest which meet their breed standards, as well as how docile they are. I am keeping all the hens at this point, except the one with the freaky eyes.The Dark Brahmas are taking FOREVER to get their back feathers.. they still are bald or have fluff on their backs.We are going to go fish the horses out of the back 40 and them bring them into the front pasture as soon as "Kid" finishes his breakfast.
He is having organic corn flakes. he had the choice between Special K and the organic flakes and he told me he prefers the organic ones to the Special K. I was very surprised and very pleased. We have the Special K ones here in pre-made cups as "Teenager" went to a base ball tourney a couple weekends ago and his grandma picked him up some simple stuff from Costco when she went up there.
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We also took an hour this morning to clip right wings on the chickens as they are almost being able to clear a 7 foot fence and if they have to get moved, the other fence is only 5 feet high. They do not have enough weight yet and they can fly pretty good now. I will do the turkeys when and if we have to move them. There are only 5 VS the 51 chickens. I culled out a few more birds on the chickens so it was a good thing to handle them. I pulled their legs bands. Thus far I have culled for a Rhode Island Red hen with a weird congenetive eye problem in both eyes and then Plymouth Barred Rock roosters with crooked or broken toes. The rest of the roosters I am going to cull the light ones and keep the 2 largest which meet their breed standards, as well as how docile they are. I am keeping all the hens at this point, except the one with the freaky eyes.The Dark Brahmas are taking FOREVER to get their back feathers.. they still are bald or have fluff on their backs.We are going to go fish the horses out of the back 40 and them bring them into the front pasture as soon as "Kid" finishes his breakfast.
He is having organic corn flakes. he had the choice between Special K and the organic flakes and he told me he prefers the organic ones to the Special K. I was very surprised and very pleased. We have the Special K ones here in pre-made cups as "Teenager" went to a base ball tourney a couple weekends ago and his grandma picked him up some simple stuff from Costco when she went up there.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about
July 6th, 2006
HOT-HOT-HOT!!!!
Monday -
Our company left and went back to Oregon. Lightening storm the night that did not seem too exciting. I saw 1-2 flashes. It was really really really hot... really.. so we all bailed and went to the preferred swimming hole down at the river and spend 7 hours there. On our way, not far from our driveway, I inquired to the guys if they smelled smoke.. they said no...I was wearing a new swimming suit and was thinking I was being careful and with the cutout in my suit, it looks like I have a Bull's Eye the size of a dinner plate on my back. OUCH! However down at the river, I drifted down (sans tube) the river multiple times and came up with new ideas to write on. I am pretty excited about one topic.. the kids played with a kid (that must be 50 years old going on 12) and they all had great fun in the river, playing, fishing and rock collecting. They even caught a nice trout. We stayed all day and it was lovely.We had the water tank in the back of the truck as we are hauling water for our well again and we filled up at my bf's shoppe with the fire hose on our way back from the swimming hole. As I am holding the nozzle into the tank bracing myself as to not go flying, waiting for my bf to turn the water on, he spooked up a 4 point buck with only one horn. I am looking around and look towards home and see a plume of smoke.. I am sure it is a forest fire. I ask my honey who is a former smoke jumper for wildfires.. he says it is not smoke. I keep questioning and he says it isn't. I have serious doubts.. and watch it all the way home for 30-some miles. We get home and are dumping the water down our well and the neighbor comes over and I mention the supposed fire and he thinks it is too. I have serious doubts about my guys fire fighting abilities at this time. For a smoke jumper/wildfire fighter guy, I lost my confidence in him for a few until he redeemed himself.I decide to drive with "Kid" out to where there looks like smoke and pick up my friend "A" who had no idea what was going on behind her cabin. We throw "A" into my truck and we continue to cruise down the road.. looking at this ominous cloud the whole time. We get to the social area of the area.. which is a single building and get the skinny that it is a wildfire and it is HUGE and moving fast. We dump "A" back off at her house and cruise home. This wildfire is all in bug kill.. a sea of red trees which you can see from outer space now. It is one of my biggest fears of where lightening might hit. As of last night. 16,000 acres was burning or already burnt. The flames are 300+ feet high.
This is what Bug Kill looks. There were over 100 wildfires started since Monday night in our district I was told.
Tuesday-
"Kid" and I went on magazine rounds and found a few Winter issues which had not sold at a place and they will be mailed out to some who are waiting tomorrow, unless we have to stick close to home due to the wildfire. The smoke was 150 miles out from our home. And the fire is on the other side of our home. We were on standby for going and evacuating 2 families and then both my friends had a personal crisis.. which is another total story.. geez.. it is not even a full moon. I was up until 3 am and I was sitting in the dark on our front porch and could see the glow of the fires on the other side of our mountain.
Wednesday -
At 6pm tonight... [I actually started that above part of the post hours ago and am just back again].... the smoke is heading our direction again. I now have a sore throat and my nose is stuffy again. The sky is a brown haze and looks probably alot like Los Angeles, CA. The updates are so very far and few between. As we are mostly ranches, forestry and aboriginals out here, no one really cares and they are letting it burn. There are virtually no firefighters on it. My bf's aunt works in the forestry department here, but a different section than the wildfire section. She does hear of things trickling down and she said that she did not advise us to start packing yet, but to plan what to take if we have to get evacuated. We were well ahead of her and since Monday night have located places to place 51 chickens, 5 turkeys, 3 horses, 1 goat, sled dogs and 3 hogs if need be.We are cautious, but not too worried yet. We are told we will have around 5 hours warning (though I am taking that with a grain of salt), but I think we can get out of here in under 2 hours with all the stock, photo's and personal objects we do not want to loose. We have fire insurance..
Next update.. I just got a call a few minutes ago.. my friend "A" that we went to her place the other night to get her to go see where the fire was.. it is about 10 miles from her place now. Tomorrow we are bringing in horse trailers and trucks and bringing the horses up into the front pasture. Depending on where the fire is advancing to, we may be pulling out animals tomorrow.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about
Monday -
Our company left and went back to Oregon. Lightening storm the night that did not seem too exciting. I saw 1-2 flashes. It was really really really hot... really.. so we all bailed and went to the preferred swimming hole down at the river and spend 7 hours there. On our way, not far from our driveway, I inquired to the guys if they smelled smoke.. they said no...I was wearing a new swimming suit and was thinking I was being careful and with the cutout in my suit, it looks like I have a Bull's Eye the size of a dinner plate on my back. OUCH! However down at the river, I drifted down (sans tube) the river multiple times and came up with new ideas to write on. I am pretty excited about one topic.. the kids played with a kid (that must be 50 years old going on 12) and they all had great fun in the river, playing, fishing and rock collecting. They even caught a nice trout. We stayed all day and it was lovely.We had the water tank in the back of the truck as we are hauling water for our well again and we filled up at my bf's shoppe with the fire hose on our way back from the swimming hole. As I am holding the nozzle into the tank bracing myself as to not go flying, waiting for my bf to turn the water on, he spooked up a 4 point buck with only one horn. I am looking around and look towards home and see a plume of smoke.. I am sure it is a forest fire. I ask my honey who is a former smoke jumper for wildfires.. he says it is not smoke. I keep questioning and he says it isn't. I have serious doubts.. and watch it all the way home for 30-some miles. We get home and are dumping the water down our well and the neighbor comes over and I mention the supposed fire and he thinks it is too. I have serious doubts about my guys fire fighting abilities at this time. For a smoke jumper/wildfire fighter guy, I lost my confidence in him for a few until he redeemed himself.I decide to drive with "Kid" out to where there looks like smoke and pick up my friend "A" who had no idea what was going on behind her cabin. We throw "A" into my truck and we continue to cruise down the road.. looking at this ominous cloud the whole time. We get to the social area of the area.. which is a single building and get the skinny that it is a wildfire and it is HUGE and moving fast. We dump "A" back off at her house and cruise home. This wildfire is all in bug kill.. a sea of red trees which you can see from outer space now. It is one of my biggest fears of where lightening might hit. As of last night. 16,000 acres was burning or already burnt. The flames are 300+ feet high.
This is what Bug Kill looks. There were over 100 wildfires started since Monday night in our district I was told.
Tuesday-
"Kid" and I went on magazine rounds and found a few Winter issues which had not sold at a place and they will be mailed out to some who are waiting tomorrow, unless we have to stick close to home due to the wildfire. The smoke was 150 miles out from our home. And the fire is on the other side of our home. We were on standby for going and evacuating 2 families and then both my friends had a personal crisis.. which is another total story.. geez.. it is not even a full moon. I was up until 3 am and I was sitting in the dark on our front porch and could see the glow of the fires on the other side of our mountain.
Wednesday -
At 6pm tonight... [I actually started that above part of the post hours ago and am just back again].... the smoke is heading our direction again. I now have a sore throat and my nose is stuffy again. The sky is a brown haze and looks probably alot like Los Angeles, CA. The updates are so very far and few between. As we are mostly ranches, forestry and aboriginals out here, no one really cares and they are letting it burn. There are virtually no firefighters on it. My bf's aunt works in the forestry department here, but a different section than the wildfire section. She does hear of things trickling down and she said that she did not advise us to start packing yet, but to plan what to take if we have to get evacuated. We were well ahead of her and since Monday night have located places to place 51 chickens, 5 turkeys, 3 horses, 1 goat, sled dogs and 3 hogs if need be.We are cautious, but not too worried yet. We are told we will have around 5 hours warning (though I am taking that with a grain of salt), but I think we can get out of here in under 2 hours with all the stock, photo's and personal objects we do not want to loose. We have fire insurance..
Next update.. I just got a call a few minutes ago.. my friend "A" that we went to her place the other night to get her to go see where the fire was.. it is about 10 miles from her place now. Tomorrow we are bringing in horse trailers and trucks and bringing the horses up into the front pasture. Depending on where the fire is advancing to, we may be pulling out animals tomorrow.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about
July 5th, 2006
Sunday:
I got up at 5 am and made 5 batches of bread for our pig roast party we had. We ended up with quite a few people. It was my first pig roast and it was pretty fun. I invited and met my long time friend's #5 sister (there are 11 sisters and 1 brother) as she just moved to town and I invited her as well to our pig roast.
It was SOOOOOOOOOO hot Sunday.. and no grass lawns here yet due to the lack of rain. I have been watching the skies for thunderstorms. We do not need lightening.. it is way too dry out there.We get a call that my bf's job is shut down due to fire danger. He is off work for a week.
Monday:
Our company left, I think they had an excellent 8 days here. Due to it being so hot the last couple of days here, we all decided to go to the river and play all day. We took a huge cooler full of leftover food from the pig roast and some people from the party the day before joined us. Swimming felt awesome. The water is very warm there after the initial plunge. We heard thunder booming miles away and it echoed in the canyon. I came out of the water about that point for awhile. We tried our hands at gold panning and the people who were with us are rock hounds and jewelry makers and so we were finding all sorts of lovely stones.I GOT BURNT!! I never burn, but I was watching my legs carefully and not my back. I am going to peel on this one.
We took the water tank and we went to the well at my bf's shop and brought home 400 gallons of water and we finally got to water the garden after a week of not watering it. For the lack of water, the garden is actually looking quite fine, though I know it would look better with MORE waterings.
At the well while I was holding the fire hose in the tank I noticed these HUGE cumulus clouds.. but they looked funny to me. On the drive home I was still watching them and then realized that they were huge wildfires. The one side of the 'cloud' was too flat on one side and looked like when Mt St Helen's exploded the first time in 1980.. that cauliflower effect.. and the drift of the smoke you could see was brown the closer we got.
One of my biggest fears up here is wildfires. Lightening evidently set off 22 of them in our district on Sunday night. "Kid" and I went to a friends house out that direction as we could not get her on the phone and she did not realize that there was a fire less than 15 miles out her back door. There are too many trees too close to her house for her to have seen it.
We scooped her up and went to go track the fire and we stopped at a local store which is the only place out there as we figured that they would know. All we could get for size of the fire is "We don't know yet, but it is HUGE".. from their description of where it is, it is only about 30-40 miles from our cabin.
My bf had me call a couple people to be able to put them on standby for helping us haul our livestock and we have a place to store the horses and poultry (it is a good friend who would let you dump 51 chickens and 5 turkeys at their house in a millisecond). Pictures and books would be some of the top priorities which would be hauled off. Thinking of putting the horses in the smaller front pasture so it is easier to catch them VS on the 37 acre pasture.I think more wildlife is moving this way. The dogs were set off all night. We will have to watch for predators even more now.
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I got up at 5 am and made 5 batches of bread for our pig roast party we had. We ended up with quite a few people. It was my first pig roast and it was pretty fun. I invited and met my long time friend's #5 sister (there are 11 sisters and 1 brother) as she just moved to town and I invited her as well to our pig roast.
It was SOOOOOOOOOO hot Sunday.. and no grass lawns here yet due to the lack of rain. I have been watching the skies for thunderstorms. We do not need lightening.. it is way too dry out there.We get a call that my bf's job is shut down due to fire danger. He is off work for a week.
Monday:
Our company left, I think they had an excellent 8 days here. Due to it being so hot the last couple of days here, we all decided to go to the river and play all day. We took a huge cooler full of leftover food from the pig roast and some people from the party the day before joined us. Swimming felt awesome. The water is very warm there after the initial plunge. We heard thunder booming miles away and it echoed in the canyon. I came out of the water about that point for awhile. We tried our hands at gold panning and the people who were with us are rock hounds and jewelry makers and so we were finding all sorts of lovely stones.I GOT BURNT!! I never burn, but I was watching my legs carefully and not my back. I am going to peel on this one.
We took the water tank and we went to the well at my bf's shop and brought home 400 gallons of water and we finally got to water the garden after a week of not watering it. For the lack of water, the garden is actually looking quite fine, though I know it would look better with MORE waterings.
At the well while I was holding the fire hose in the tank I noticed these HUGE cumulus clouds.. but they looked funny to me. On the drive home I was still watching them and then realized that they were huge wildfires. The one side of the 'cloud' was too flat on one side and looked like when Mt St Helen's exploded the first time in 1980.. that cauliflower effect.. and the drift of the smoke you could see was brown the closer we got.
One of my biggest fears up here is wildfires. Lightening evidently set off 22 of them in our district on Sunday night. "Kid" and I went to a friends house out that direction as we could not get her on the phone and she did not realize that there was a fire less than 15 miles out her back door. There are too many trees too close to her house for her to have seen it.
We scooped her up and went to go track the fire and we stopped at a local store which is the only place out there as we figured that they would know. All we could get for size of the fire is "We don't know yet, but it is HUGE".. from their description of where it is, it is only about 30-40 miles from our cabin.
My bf had me call a couple people to be able to put them on standby for helping us haul our livestock and we have a place to store the horses and poultry (it is a good friend who would let you dump 51 chickens and 5 turkeys at their house in a millisecond). Pictures and books would be some of the top priorities which would be hauled off. Thinking of putting the horses in the smaller front pasture so it is easier to catch them VS on the 37 acre pasture.I think more wildlife is moving this way. The dogs were set off all night. We will have to watch for predators even more now.
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July 2nd, 2006
We went fishing for trout all day yesterday. We went to a lovely spot in a remote area and climbed/scrambled down a hill.. which was interesting with a 60-some year old woman.
Once we got down there (this spot was a friends recommendation by the way).. it was gorgeous. We all caught fish on our first cast out.. decided they were too little and then found out that the fish in this area were smaller than other areas.. OH WELL... out of 7 fish caught that day, we took 2 home. My bf fell into the river as he was scrambling around on some rocks.. apparently Mountain Goat he is not.. he needed to wash his feet anyway he said. I actually came rather close to splatting on my face, face first into the river a couple times, but I was on the rocky bank and I just lost my balance.
Picture: My mom's friend fishing for trout
on their trip up to visit us.
There was no rhyme nor reason for what the fish were striking on yesterday and after a cast or two, you needed to switch lures.. I finally lost my favorite lure and packed it in for the day after fishing for a good 2-3 hours.We saw Bald Eagles and lots of moose poop, but we are still trying to find an allusive moose for our company to see. However we did get to show them 3 black bears and lots of deer (including the one that hit my truck).. and one of the deer had twins she took across the roadway.So we had trout for dinner with leftover salmon made into Salmon Cakes and rice pilaf..Today we are taking them trailriding. My bf's mom is bringing up 2 extra horses so we each have a horse to ride.. (otherwise it was going to be a long walk for me - and it is not the first time I have hiked while someone else rode). Maybe we will see more wildlife today.. and we will probably see alot of cattle as we are going onto open rangeland.
Afternoon Update
I am taking a break while the company ran down to the store. Alot of people must have gotten their magazines and their renewal slips as there was a whole schwack of re-newals this morning as well as about 5 new subscriptions by the time I started coffee for everyone and go riding and come back. Thank you everyone.. and I am glad you are enjoying the "Down to the Roots" magazine.The ride was awesome. We took a new trail today since the green rider decided not to go at the last minute. Not nearly as many creek crossings, but a very nice trail all the same with a quaint waterfall. The horses had a great workout. The last few days has told me I need to get in better shape yet, no matter how well I am feeling since the accident. I am stiff and sore today. Thursday I tried to swing a baseball bat around to see if I still could when the opposing team did not show up for a game and our team decided to hold a practice since everyone was there anyway. I can go from right to left, but not left to right.
Picture: Three of the six of us whom went trail riding this day. This is my boyfriend on the Paint and his parents in front.
Evening Update
Got home about 2 am after a family barn dance on a beautiful historic ranch. The celebration was my bf's cousin was married recently. There must have been a few hundred people there. It was one of the most beautiful wedding receptions I have ever been to.
Today we are having a pig roast at our house due to a combined birthday party for my mom and my bf's mother. I have never cooked a pit pig before, but my bf has. He dug the hole yesterday afternoon with a pick axe and shovel. He says in the heat he must have lost 5# in sweat alone. I got a horrible email this morning from a friend. Something got into her beloved flock of Buff Cochins and murdered all but 3 of them last night. She is destavated. She thinks her border collie did it, but cannot prove it yet.
Off to bake a ton of bread.........
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June 30th, 2006
I am worried about wildfires. It has been so hot and dry. Today was not as bad as it has been, but still it is a concern to have in the back of one's mind. I keep watching the skies for thunderclouds and hope that we get rain and no thunderstorms with it.
I noted that my deer that hit me (technically she is the one who hit me) is no longer alongside the road. I have no idea what hauled her off, human or an animal.
We had a little black bear at the edge of our property yesterday. It was trying to cross the road and my guests stopped the truck and took pictures of him, truly confusing the poor beast who I could see thinking "All I want to do is cross the road and you guys are in my way!".. they got some nice pictures of him/her though.
Tomorrow I am going fishing. I have not got to go fishing for 2 years since I missed last year. I am going to go for some trout. Whether I catch any or not is a different story. I have been chased out by bears before, probably a Grizzly, hopefully that does not happen tomorrow as the people who are my guests are basically city-slickers. I know they will probably freak out. One is a flyfisherman and the other one will probably take a book. I am getting up early to make buns to put cold moosemeat and cheese on for our lunch along with the mandatory oranges I am having them eat as they are getting eaten alive by insects. They think it is as they have not acclimated to the area and have 'new blood'. I think it is that we HEAVILY eat garlic this time of the year. For instance in my bowtie noodles tonight I used about 12 cloves of garlic. The mushroom pickers I know swear by eating 2 oranges a day to keep the mosquitoes and no-see-ums away.
Ok.. it is after midnight.. so I suppose I ought to go brush my teeth [with Burt's Lavender and Mint toothpaste.. yummy] and hot the hay..
OHHHHHHHHHH.. speaking of hay.. I got a GREAT deal yesterday.. I was given a ton of excellent hay for my goat as they wanted to get rid of last years out of their barn to bring in the new stuff. They even delivered it to our place.
Goodnight (or technically, Good Morning) everyone ..
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about
I noted that my deer that hit me (technically she is the one who hit me) is no longer alongside the road. I have no idea what hauled her off, human or an animal.
We had a little black bear at the edge of our property yesterday. It was trying to cross the road and my guests stopped the truck and took pictures of him, truly confusing the poor beast who I could see thinking "All I want to do is cross the road and you guys are in my way!".. they got some nice pictures of him/her though.
Tomorrow I am going fishing. I have not got to go fishing for 2 years since I missed last year. I am going to go for some trout. Whether I catch any or not is a different story. I have been chased out by bears before, probably a Grizzly, hopefully that does not happen tomorrow as the people who are my guests are basically city-slickers. I know they will probably freak out. One is a flyfisherman and the other one will probably take a book. I am getting up early to make buns to put cold moosemeat and cheese on for our lunch along with the mandatory oranges I am having them eat as they are getting eaten alive by insects. They think it is as they have not acclimated to the area and have 'new blood'. I think it is that we HEAVILY eat garlic this time of the year. For instance in my bowtie noodles tonight I used about 12 cloves of garlic. The mushroom pickers I know swear by eating 2 oranges a day to keep the mosquitoes and no-see-ums away.
Ok.. it is after midnight.. so I suppose I ought to go brush my teeth [with Burt's Lavender and Mint toothpaste.. yummy] and hot the hay..
OHHHHHHHHHH.. speaking of hay.. I got a GREAT deal yesterday.. I was given a ton of excellent hay for my goat as they wanted to get rid of last years out of their barn to bring in the new stuff. They even delivered it to our place.
Goodnight (or technically, Good Morning) everyone ..
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about
June 29th, 2006
My poor truck. Until a couple nights ago, it was newer and it was straight.. that is until a suicidal doe deer ran into the passenger side of the truck. She took out the grill, the side marker, the whole front quarter panel, dented the door and scratched the bed. But I did not know that until later.... I parked at the side of the road and ran back to check on her first She was not quite dead, but died in my arms about a minute and a half after I got to her. I am glad I did not have to finish her off. I checked to make sure she was not lactating and I did not have to look for a fawn. She was probably a yearling.
Since it is illegal to move her, I had to leave her, but I felt horrible wasting her meat like that.. just leave it alongside the road. At the very least, she could have been utilized to feed dogs.
The road is so brushy there, she was not quite out of the bushes by the time she hit me. My bf was with me and his eyes got a little big. I am surprised that the impact did not move my truck more. I have trained myself over the years to never swerve as I know too many people who have died due to swerving for dogs in the roadway. I think my bf was impressed that I just slow down, and do not swerve.. there was an oncoming car, but I never saw it until they stopped as I ran back. Funnily enough it was a client from the vet clinic and she also stopped and she said she knew the deer was in good hands with me.. it was only after she said that to me that I recognized the woman... though I know her well.. as I was concentrating on the doe more and seeing what I could do for her.
I was sad, she (the deer) was a beautiful little thing. But there was too much thoratic and head trauma. At least she went quickly.
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Since it is illegal to move her, I had to leave her, but I felt horrible wasting her meat like that.. just leave it alongside the road. At the very least, she could have been utilized to feed dogs.
The road is so brushy there, she was not quite out of the bushes by the time she hit me. My bf was with me and his eyes got a little big. I am surprised that the impact did not move my truck more. I have trained myself over the years to never swerve as I know too many people who have died due to swerving for dogs in the roadway. I think my bf was impressed that I just slow down, and do not swerve.. there was an oncoming car, but I never saw it until they stopped as I ran back. Funnily enough it was a client from the vet clinic and she also stopped and she said she knew the deer was in good hands with me.. it was only after she said that to me that I recognized the woman... though I know her well.. as I was concentrating on the doe more and seeing what I could do for her.
I was sad, she (the deer) was a beautiful little thing. But there was too much thoratic and head trauma. At least she went quickly.
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June 27th, 2006
Our company arrived yesterday afternoon. They had a fine trip up from the States and are tired from the trip and our elevation. For dinner they had their first taste of Perogies handmade by my bf's mom (she and her sister made 800 of them for a relatives upcoming wedding).
My company went to bed fairly early and they are still sleeping.... But I got up early this morning and it is still around 5 am now. My bf left to go to work at 4 am, but before he did, he woke me up to look at a doe deer who was eyeballing the garden from about 30 feet away and on the other side the fence in and standing in our front pasture. I have a dog strategically parked with his doghouse there ("Cyrus"), but the bum was still sleeping. I watched her walk back and forth through the gate a few times and just as I was thinking what a lousy dog patrol system I had and was wondering what dog to switch with him, "Cyrus" re-deemed himself and woke up, bolted like a flash out of his house and scared the deer away, pronking (running like Peppy Le'Phew) away as fast as her little hooves would take her.
I tried to go to bed again and I heard this HORRIBLE dying cry of a chicken. I had forgotten to lock the chickens up last night. I heard this horrible noise over the cats Purring (as I am trying to smother his purr to hear what I was hearing, only to make him purr louder- finally covering him up with about 3 pillows to drown out "Watson's" purr ) about 4 times.. with a heavy heart, I get dressed and grab my tennis shoes and head up to the barn to check out the aftermath..I get around the corner and the chickens are looking at me like "WHAT?!?!?!".. I then realize that horrible noise was evidently one of the roosters learning to crow.
I say hello to the horses, grab the goat and tie her down the driveway somewhere shady to eat and hang out for the day.So.. now that I am wide awake.. what does one do before 5:30am and try to stay quiet? Work on the computer an make bagels. So the breadmaker is kneading for me and then I will build and boil the bagels. My Ginger Rhubarb jam was a hit last night. I even like it and I am not a jam eater, unless it is involved in something like cookies.
I have leftover salmon from the other night when a friend gave us some HUGE salmon steaks and I am going to make a salmon spread with it to go on the bagels. Between that and organic oranges I got yesterday, that ought to be a good breakfast.
At 9 pm the night before they arrived, our well went dry again. It has since recovered, but drilling a new well is in order. We will keep the hand dug one for gardening and greenhouse purposes, but in the meantime we are hauling 400 gallons of water every trip when we go to town. It is a good question when we will get to drill a new well. There are some people in this country that I know that have hauled 300+ gallons of water to their homes each and every day for 10 years. I guess you just get into the routine of hauling it. I am glad we have a fire hose though as we hook to a hydrant at my bf's truck shop and the tank is filled in about 5 minutes. At the town well, it would take 40 minutes to fill.
It turned brutally hot yesterday. It melted the suet feeder in the shade. I am worried about bushfires. There had to have been one yesterday as the whole valley was just filled with smoke and I could not hardly see any distance.Well it just turned 6 am, so I best get at the bagels before the rest of the house wakes up. Everyone have a great day!
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about
My company went to bed fairly early and they are still sleeping.... But I got up early this morning and it is still around 5 am now. My bf left to go to work at 4 am, but before he did, he woke me up to look at a doe deer who was eyeballing the garden from about 30 feet away and on the other side the fence in and standing in our front pasture. I have a dog strategically parked with his doghouse there ("Cyrus"), but the bum was still sleeping. I watched her walk back and forth through the gate a few times and just as I was thinking what a lousy dog patrol system I had and was wondering what dog to switch with him, "Cyrus" re-deemed himself and woke up, bolted like a flash out of his house and scared the deer away, pronking (running like Peppy Le'Phew) away as fast as her little hooves would take her.
I tried to go to bed again and I heard this HORRIBLE dying cry of a chicken. I had forgotten to lock the chickens up last night. I heard this horrible noise over the cats Purring (as I am trying to smother his purr to hear what I was hearing, only to make him purr louder- finally covering him up with about 3 pillows to drown out "Watson's" purr ) about 4 times.. with a heavy heart, I get dressed and grab my tennis shoes and head up to the barn to check out the aftermath..I get around the corner and the chickens are looking at me like "WHAT?!?!?!".. I then realize that horrible noise was evidently one of the roosters learning to crow.
I say hello to the horses, grab the goat and tie her down the driveway somewhere shady to eat and hang out for the day.So.. now that I am wide awake.. what does one do before 5:30am and try to stay quiet? Work on the computer an make bagels. So the breadmaker is kneading for me and then I will build and boil the bagels. My Ginger Rhubarb jam was a hit last night. I even like it and I am not a jam eater, unless it is involved in something like cookies.
I have leftover salmon from the other night when a friend gave us some HUGE salmon steaks and I am going to make a salmon spread with it to go on the bagels. Between that and organic oranges I got yesterday, that ought to be a good breakfast.
At 9 pm the night before they arrived, our well went dry again. It has since recovered, but drilling a new well is in order. We will keep the hand dug one for gardening and greenhouse purposes, but in the meantime we are hauling 400 gallons of water every trip when we go to town. It is a good question when we will get to drill a new well. There are some people in this country that I know that have hauled 300+ gallons of water to their homes each and every day for 10 years. I guess you just get into the routine of hauling it. I am glad we have a fire hose though as we hook to a hydrant at my bf's truck shop and the tank is filled in about 5 minutes. At the town well, it would take 40 minutes to fill.
It turned brutally hot yesterday. It melted the suet feeder in the shade. I am worried about bushfires. There had to have been one yesterday as the whole valley was just filled with smoke and I could not hardly see any distance.Well it just turned 6 am, so I best get at the bagels before the rest of the house wakes up. Everyone have a great day!
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about
June 24th, 2006
Good morning everyone.I just had to share how my day yesterday went. I have no idea how today is going to turn out yet *L*I get up around 6 am and it is a lovely day outside. I do the animal chores, milk the goat, open the greenhouse view the garden to see if all is well (like no moose or deer have been snacking on it or something).
I come back into the house and get my stuff ready to head out the door. "Teenager's" truck is not running. It will not start. We use jumper cables and the like... no zoom zoom. He takes the truck I am having to use for the day and goes and gets his girlfriend who is waiting at Point B for him to take her to school for their finals. I am watching the time as I have to take a biking helmet to "Kid" as he wants to ride his bike from the school to the park they are having a picnic at for the end of the year with the rest of the kids on bikes.
I draw my bath, my bf's father calls and says he is on his way to come look at the truck. When the phone rang I heard a commotion outside and it is our orange tabby cat "Charlie" who has a baby robin in his mouth and 6 other robins are attacking "Charlie". Then as I was getting the baby bird , "Charlie" and I had 6 robins attacking US! I set the baby robin on a stump and send the cat in the other direction. I remember I have bathtub water running and quickly take a bath."Teenager" gets home with the gf and I zoom off to go take the helmet to his younger brother "Kid" at the school almost 40 minutes away.
I get to the school and find "Kid" and he tells me sheepishly that he forgot his bike this morning. So now that I am off my 'schedual' I proceed to run my schedual backwards and go to work on my printing press for the rest of the Winter issue to take with the Spring issue when I go pick up the Summer issue from the people that collimate, fold, staple and trim them.
I get to the door and my bf's mom asks me how my interview went. I start running and yell at her to PLEASE call the paper and I will be right there. A newspaper called me last week as they had seen "DTTR" magazine and wanted to do a page on it. I make it to my appointment and had a great time giving the interview. It will be interesting to see how the article turns out. I all the years I have been in newspapers about things from SAR to farm tours to (?), I have only seen 2 articles ever 100% right.
Since I am down there in town, I decide to reverse my strategy and do my errands in the opposite direction. I drop off my horse equipment which needed repair and told her about the magazine and they want some there to sell in their store. I find I left my purse at the newspaper office, so go back there to get it, come back, pay her and then go get the magazines from the people who finish them (stapling ect). Go back to the previous store and leave some magazines and deliver them to the rest of the outlets in the area.Then I head back up to where my press is and finish the Spring issue and start on the Winter issue.
I hear through the grapevine (the bush radios we have in the trucks) that "Teenager" has issues with his truck at school now. His grandpa on the radio walked him through it and all he had to do was jiggle the steering wheel and Voila(!) the truck started again.
It started going on 4 pm by this time and I had to leave the rest of the Winter issue at page 16, so I could get home in time to cook dinner for my honey and three stinky teenage boys who are playing in a baseball tourney this weekend. One of the poor stinky boys had to sleep on the livingroom sofa while I was up until 1 am packaging magazine orders up (not all of them are the same, some people want Fall issue, some Fall and Spring, some starting their sub now, some are re-fills from ones the post office lost, so I have to go and do each one, checking it against their card in the card index, so I hand wrote all the addresses this time) and putting their green declaration labels on.
Still I did not get half of what I planned on done yesterday. There were alot more subscription orders to send out than I had thought, it is one thing on paper and a total different thing in boxes and boxes on the livingroom floor. I know the person behind me in line at the Post Office hates me. I try to send alot of people through before me.
Since I was swamped, I had 3 boys to run and put the chickens away, shut the greenhouse, feed and water the hogs, grab the goose out of the greenhouse.
-------Today I am running the Summer issues to the post office and the remainder of the orders who get the Spring and Winter issues will get theirs next week. It was easier to do it that way, get the Summer out and then fill with the re-printed Spring and Winter ones (I made sure we were not going to run out of the Summer issue the first day like those two did). So do not be surprised if the summer shows up before the others. The reason alot of people are getting theirs after, just to fill in the rest of you, is that these people ordered a yearly subscription after the Winter and Spring issues were sold out and we are waiting on them to get re-printed (our press) and then finished up at another place.
I will be gone from here for a bit, though I will be in and out. I have out of town company coming and I will be spending some time with them for the next week. I will be checking my email daily if anyone needs to get ahold of me.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about
I come back into the house and get my stuff ready to head out the door. "Teenager's" truck is not running. It will not start. We use jumper cables and the like... no zoom zoom. He takes the truck I am having to use for the day and goes and gets his girlfriend who is waiting at Point B for him to take her to school for their finals. I am watching the time as I have to take a biking helmet to "Kid" as he wants to ride his bike from the school to the park they are having a picnic at for the end of the year with the rest of the kids on bikes.
I draw my bath, my bf's father calls and says he is on his way to come look at the truck. When the phone rang I heard a commotion outside and it is our orange tabby cat "Charlie" who has a baby robin in his mouth and 6 other robins are attacking "Charlie". Then as I was getting the baby bird , "Charlie" and I had 6 robins attacking US! I set the baby robin on a stump and send the cat in the other direction. I remember I have bathtub water running and quickly take a bath."Teenager" gets home with the gf and I zoom off to go take the helmet to his younger brother "Kid" at the school almost 40 minutes away.
I get to the school and find "Kid" and he tells me sheepishly that he forgot his bike this morning. So now that I am off my 'schedual' I proceed to run my schedual backwards and go to work on my printing press for the rest of the Winter issue to take with the Spring issue when I go pick up the Summer issue from the people that collimate, fold, staple and trim them.
I get to the door and my bf's mom asks me how my interview went. I start running and yell at her to PLEASE call the paper and I will be right there. A newspaper called me last week as they had seen "DTTR" magazine and wanted to do a page on it. I make it to my appointment and had a great time giving the interview. It will be interesting to see how the article turns out. I all the years I have been in newspapers about things from SAR to farm tours to (?), I have only seen 2 articles ever 100% right.
Since I am down there in town, I decide to reverse my strategy and do my errands in the opposite direction. I drop off my horse equipment which needed repair and told her about the magazine and they want some there to sell in their store. I find I left my purse at the newspaper office, so go back there to get it, come back, pay her and then go get the magazines from the people who finish them (stapling ect). Go back to the previous store and leave some magazines and deliver them to the rest of the outlets in the area.Then I head back up to where my press is and finish the Spring issue and start on the Winter issue.
I hear through the grapevine (the bush radios we have in the trucks) that "Teenager" has issues with his truck at school now. His grandpa on the radio walked him through it and all he had to do was jiggle the steering wheel and Voila(!) the truck started again.
It started going on 4 pm by this time and I had to leave the rest of the Winter issue at page 16, so I could get home in time to cook dinner for my honey and three stinky teenage boys who are playing in a baseball tourney this weekend. One of the poor stinky boys had to sleep on the livingroom sofa while I was up until 1 am packaging magazine orders up (not all of them are the same, some people want Fall issue, some Fall and Spring, some starting their sub now, some are re-fills from ones the post office lost, so I have to go and do each one, checking it against their card in the card index, so I hand wrote all the addresses this time) and putting their green declaration labels on.
Still I did not get half of what I planned on done yesterday. There were alot more subscription orders to send out than I had thought, it is one thing on paper and a total different thing in boxes and boxes on the livingroom floor. I know the person behind me in line at the Post Office hates me. I try to send alot of people through before me.
Since I was swamped, I had 3 boys to run and put the chickens away, shut the greenhouse, feed and water the hogs, grab the goose out of the greenhouse.
-------Today I am running the Summer issues to the post office and the remainder of the orders who get the Spring and Winter issues will get theirs next week. It was easier to do it that way, get the Summer out and then fill with the re-printed Spring and Winter ones (I made sure we were not going to run out of the Summer issue the first day like those two did). So do not be surprised if the summer shows up before the others. The reason alot of people are getting theirs after, just to fill in the rest of you, is that these people ordered a yearly subscription after the Winter and Spring issues were sold out and we are waiting on them to get re-printed (our press) and then finished up at another place.
I will be gone from here for a bit, though I will be in and out. I have out of town company coming and I will be spending some time with them for the next week. I will be checking my email daily if anyone needs to get ahold of me.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about
June 18th, 2006
I can actually start this post out by saying I am actually not tired today. Though I got to sleep around 2 am, I got to sleep in until 10 am, which was weird for me.
Yesterday it was snowing up here.. yeppers snowing. I actually stopped the truck in the middle of the road in the middle of this monsoon/hurricane/tornado thing we had going as I could not decide if the white stuff was hail.. then cottonwood/poplar fluff or snow.. I think it was about 70% snow. It was mostly warm out, but we had this string of thunderstorms go through. My bf's mom saw a truck with about 2" of white on the hood that had passed her from coming from this direction.
I am glad it did not hail.. my poor garden. It has been rainy enough for the last week, I am not watering my garden every day and my new lawn is starting to grow. I just got done ordering the food stuffs for the fresh produce Co-Op I belong to and just became the coordinator for. The person who is supposed to help me and teach me this.. had 2 lessons with me and then she is gone to Toronto until this next week. I was slightly traumatized. I am doing all these spreadsheets and I have a war movie blaring on the TV and then the Teenager was playing the same tab over and over and over. None of that helped at all and finally they went to bed and I got the order sheet done. I think I did OK.. we shall see.
Like the rest of the days, it has been pouring. We did get to mow the lawn and weedeater between rainstorms. I left the goat out during the biggest rainstorm and from her protesting, I am pretty sure she thought she was going to melt into a pile of goo from getting wettened.I started to make Focciatia bread with fresh basil and other herbs on it for dinner tonight. For no apparent reason, my bread failed me for once, so I rolled it out into a pan and made deep dish pizza from it instead. While it was cooking, I made a batch of banana nut and raspberry lemon muffins for breakfast tomorrow.
Now that I am sorta getting the hang of the fresh produce co-op, there are about 5 of us who want to get an organic foods co-op going and buy wholesale. That is one of my next projects here in the upcoming weeks finding distributors and such. When I finish this entry, I am off to finish editing the Summer issue so I can get it printed tomorrow since I am a week behind what I wanted to have it done, but I had those 1 and 2 babies to watch and NOTHING got accomplished according to plan for about 5 days.
My garden is growing great guns. I need to hill my spuds with straw this week. I need to finish planting my carrots. It has finally warmed up enough I did not have to worry about germination issues. I also planted Quinoa this year as it is about $22 a pound in the stores for it. The horse shoer is coming on Monday. Though we are now trimming our own horses feet, I like a professional to do them every 6-10 months, just to make sure we have everything on track.
I weeded the baby asparagus beds this afternoon. I am trying to keep on top of it every few days and bust the weeds out of there. The wild strawberries were reported by the boys to be ripening. I will have to go out in a few days and get some. If you have never had a wild strawberry, you are missing out on life.. they make all others pale in taste.
I love bartering. I have a friend who I am working with to help promote each others stuff. She makes BEAUTIFUL.. real jewelry and I popped in there this afternoon to tell her some things and she asked me a question on how she would word something for the commercial which will be on TV for her jewelry line. I yammered off a few sentences for her and she liked it enough , she gave me a garnet and pearl necklace. It is GORGEOUS. I still have it on. If anyone is looking for gifts for anyone else.. give her a jingle on the email. Her ad is in the back of the Summer issue..you will not regret purchasing anything from her. It is all sterling silver and real semi-precious stones. They also custom build pieces as well. OK.. off to go edit.. Goodnight everyone
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about
Yesterday it was snowing up here.. yeppers snowing. I actually stopped the truck in the middle of the road in the middle of this monsoon/hurricane/tornado thing we had going as I could not decide if the white stuff was hail.. then cottonwood/poplar fluff or snow.. I think it was about 70% snow. It was mostly warm out, but we had this string of thunderstorms go through. My bf's mom saw a truck with about 2" of white on the hood that had passed her from coming from this direction.
I am glad it did not hail.. my poor garden. It has been rainy enough for the last week, I am not watering my garden every day and my new lawn is starting to grow. I just got done ordering the food stuffs for the fresh produce Co-Op I belong to and just became the coordinator for. The person who is supposed to help me and teach me this.. had 2 lessons with me and then she is gone to Toronto until this next week. I was slightly traumatized. I am doing all these spreadsheets and I have a war movie blaring on the TV and then the Teenager was playing the same tab over and over and over. None of that helped at all and finally they went to bed and I got the order sheet done. I think I did OK.. we shall see.
Like the rest of the days, it has been pouring. We did get to mow the lawn and weedeater between rainstorms. I left the goat out during the biggest rainstorm and from her protesting, I am pretty sure she thought she was going to melt into a pile of goo from getting wettened.I started to make Focciatia bread with fresh basil and other herbs on it for dinner tonight. For no apparent reason, my bread failed me for once, so I rolled it out into a pan and made deep dish pizza from it instead. While it was cooking, I made a batch of banana nut and raspberry lemon muffins for breakfast tomorrow.
Now that I am sorta getting the hang of the fresh produce co-op, there are about 5 of us who want to get an organic foods co-op going and buy wholesale. That is one of my next projects here in the upcoming weeks finding distributors and such. When I finish this entry, I am off to finish editing the Summer issue so I can get it printed tomorrow since I am a week behind what I wanted to have it done, but I had those 1 and 2 babies to watch and NOTHING got accomplished according to plan for about 5 days.
My garden is growing great guns. I need to hill my spuds with straw this week. I need to finish planting my carrots. It has finally warmed up enough I did not have to worry about germination issues. I also planted Quinoa this year as it is about $22 a pound in the stores for it. The horse shoer is coming on Monday. Though we are now trimming our own horses feet, I like a professional to do them every 6-10 months, just to make sure we have everything on track.
I weeded the baby asparagus beds this afternoon. I am trying to keep on top of it every few days and bust the weeds out of there. The wild strawberries were reported by the boys to be ripening. I will have to go out in a few days and get some. If you have never had a wild strawberry, you are missing out on life.. they make all others pale in taste.
I love bartering. I have a friend who I am working with to help promote each others stuff. She makes BEAUTIFUL.. real jewelry and I popped in there this afternoon to tell her some things and she asked me a question on how she would word something for the commercial which will be on TV for her jewelry line. I yammered off a few sentences for her and she liked it enough , she gave me a garnet and pearl necklace. It is GORGEOUS. I still have it on. If anyone is looking for gifts for anyone else.. give her a jingle on the email. Her ad is in the back of the Summer issue..you will not regret purchasing anything from her. It is all sterling silver and real semi-precious stones. They also custom build pieces as well. OK.. off to go edit.. Goodnight everyone
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about
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