It must have be the blustery day. I was a cooking fiend this afternoon. 2 loaves of fresh bread, one for tonight and one for the kid's school lunches tomorrow.
Banana muffins for the same reason from the organic bananas which need to be used up today. The kids need snacks after all.. but on my rules.. it has to be a healthy snack. 1 batch of Gingered Citrus Rhubard Jam and 1 batch of Orange Rhubarb Chutney.. both taste delicious and I could hardly keep from licking the kettles after they were done.. .the foreamentioned bread?... I hacked into that and tossed some of the new jam on it and loved it.. I am a jam HATER! This would be awesome on top of ice cream as well.
Due to one kid getting braces this week and the other having a root canal today (do not even ask.. we were NOT in control of that situation for the last 2 years), we are having homemade chicken and vegetable soup tonight.
OMG you must be saying.. but in reality it was only a couple hours in the kitchen. I would rather watch 3 pots all at the same time, than 1 pot 3 times. I had to do something with all that rhubarb, so that is what I came up with. We have more meat going into the freezer soon, so I had to do something with it other than freeze it. I tend to also not remake something I suppose, so if I make it at the get-go...like today.. then it is done.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about
Friday, March 16, 2007
June 14th, 2006
Have I really been tired since the 6th? I am still tired. But then again I have been doing alot as well.
I had a 2 month old baby for 3 days 24/7. He slept 2 hours the first night I had him. My bf's BD party was conjoined with a friends BD and we were out until 3 am Saturday night. I went to a seminar for the business yesterday and I was gone from 6 am to 11 pm yesterday.
This morning I am off to a friends house to butcher sheep and shear 2. I have the sniffles too.. I will update a bit more tonight.. everyone have a great day.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about
I had a 2 month old baby for 3 days 24/7. He slept 2 hours the first night I had him. My bf's BD party was conjoined with a friends BD and we were out until 3 am Saturday night. I went to a seminar for the business yesterday and I was gone from 6 am to 11 pm yesterday.
This morning I am off to a friends house to butcher sheep and shear 2. I have the sniffles too.. I will update a bit more tonight.. everyone have a great day.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about
June 9th, 2006
I am T-I-R-E-D!!! I am babysitting my friends 2 1/2 month old baby. He is ALWAYS a good baby, except for last night. Major stomach ache or overtired or something... oh shoot.. he just fell asleep. I ought to go take a nap. Well... I will finish this first. I type fast.
2 or 3 am.. I had just gotten to sleep with him laying on me on the sofa and then the cat decided to join us and lay on my legs. All was fine until the 2 mosquitoes showed up and I tried to kill them without disturbing anyone. and then at 4 am, the sled dogs were telling me in a different tone that something was in the yard.. this was a new voice, so I was very much expecting the bear. What I saw instead was a young bull and two heifers standing in the middle of my driveway, raiding my lead dog "Tasha's" dog dish..
They were either Red Angus or Gelbvieh (pronounced Gelp-Vee from what I hear people calling them around here), but I am pretty sure they were Red Angus. I slept in the livingroom with the baby all night, so I yell at my bf to come help me, as the driveway gate is shut and they are too close to my garden. Thankfully the side fences from the gate are not all the way done, just the top bar, so they went under and out the driveway and onto the roadway. Then through 3 fences and into our neighbors property.
Then we saw the bear who we now call "VW" as he is the size of one. This is the huge black bear which has been hanging around for 3 weeks now I think. But heading back onto the neighbors property, there is no fence between our properties at the moment as it is being redone, so I am rather worried about cows getting into our garden. It would not be the first time. And part of the reason we put a driveway gate in.
The garden for the corn side got tilled again and will be planted today. I promise this time. The wire for the turkey pen finally came in yesterday and so the poultry pens will be done this weekend. We are trying to wrap things up as my bf goes back to work next week.. then we pretty much do not get to see him for 9 months.
Between working with the baby last night, I got the last article complete for the Summer issue and I have 2 touch-ups to do oand then it can get printed.. Woo Hoo! Then off and get the Fall one more complete. I usually write on 2-4 issues all at the same time, just so you guys know.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about
2 or 3 am.. I had just gotten to sleep with him laying on me on the sofa and then the cat decided to join us and lay on my legs. All was fine until the 2 mosquitoes showed up and I tried to kill them without disturbing anyone. and then at 4 am, the sled dogs were telling me in a different tone that something was in the yard.. this was a new voice, so I was very much expecting the bear. What I saw instead was a young bull and two heifers standing in the middle of my driveway, raiding my lead dog "Tasha's" dog dish..
They were either Red Angus or Gelbvieh (pronounced Gelp-Vee from what I hear people calling them around here), but I am pretty sure they were Red Angus. I slept in the livingroom with the baby all night, so I yell at my bf to come help me, as the driveway gate is shut and they are too close to my garden. Thankfully the side fences from the gate are not all the way done, just the top bar, so they went under and out the driveway and onto the roadway. Then through 3 fences and into our neighbors property.
Then we saw the bear who we now call "VW" as he is the size of one. This is the huge black bear which has been hanging around for 3 weeks now I think. But heading back onto the neighbors property, there is no fence between our properties at the moment as it is being redone, so I am rather worried about cows getting into our garden. It would not be the first time. And part of the reason we put a driveway gate in.
The garden for the corn side got tilled again and will be planted today. I promise this time. The wire for the turkey pen finally came in yesterday and so the poultry pens will be done this weekend. We are trying to wrap things up as my bf goes back to work next week.. then we pretty much do not get to see him for 9 months.
Between working with the baby last night, I got the last article complete for the Summer issue and I have 2 touch-ups to do oand then it can get printed.. Woo Hoo! Then off and get the Fall one more complete. I usually write on 2-4 issues all at the same time, just so you guys know.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about
June 8th, 2006
What a delightful day. It was bright and sunny without being too hot. I went early this morning to my friend "A's" house WAY out further than I am and went to go finish taking pictures for the summer issue ans had a nice tea while I was there. Then we wandered around here property checking out what was growing here and there and she asked me to ID this and that.
I saw she finally bought a pair of hand shears for her sheep. I sheared one HUGE Suffolk ewe and her new shears went DULL as a 30 year old spoon. So much for cheapy shears. I need to get my Schaeffers sent up from Oregon. I miss them. I also sheared her baby kid Angora. I have not heard a goat scream so much in my life.. apparently he screams about everything. I thought I very well may go deaf.
We made arrangements to finish shearing the other ewe and butchering out her wether on Monday. I hope the weather holds.
I took my second batch of wine out of the primary fermentor tonight and put it into a carbouy. In a dither.. we had to empty out a bottle of Santa Cruz organic apple juice into various containers and ourselves so we could put the last gallon of wine into a bottle of some kind with a fermentation lock.
"Kid" and I took a walk around the property for 2 hours after he got his homework done. We took the 2 bear dogs and we indeed did see bear tracks. They were about 4 1/2" wide. We saw no otherr bear sign however.. which is always good.Gave my baby goose a swim in the bathtub again. I thought "Danny" might need a swimming lesson. He (?) is so cute. I will post pictures at some point.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about
I saw she finally bought a pair of hand shears for her sheep. I sheared one HUGE Suffolk ewe and her new shears went DULL as a 30 year old spoon. So much for cheapy shears. I need to get my Schaeffers sent up from Oregon. I miss them. I also sheared her baby kid Angora. I have not heard a goat scream so much in my life.. apparently he screams about everything. I thought I very well may go deaf.
We made arrangements to finish shearing the other ewe and butchering out her wether on Monday. I hope the weather holds.
I took my second batch of wine out of the primary fermentor tonight and put it into a carbouy. In a dither.. we had to empty out a bottle of Santa Cruz organic apple juice into various containers and ourselves so we could put the last gallon of wine into a bottle of some kind with a fermentation lock.
"Kid" and I took a walk around the property for 2 hours after he got his homework done. We took the 2 bear dogs and we indeed did see bear tracks. They were about 4 1/2" wide. We saw no otherr bear sign however.. which is always good.Gave my baby goose a swim in the bathtub again. I thought "Danny" might need a swimming lesson. He (?) is so cute. I will post pictures at some point.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about
June 7th, 2006
Up early again this morning. Having "Kid" here every day for school days seems to be falling into place and going smoothly and into a routine.This morning is much better than yesterday..
Blustery and thunderstormy all day.. today looks to be all blue skies. Which is good. I need to drive 50 miles out the other way (really bush) and take a few photos to finish up the summer issue. I can envision the picture, so I have to make it so.
WOW.. got alot of subscriptions over the last couple days for more back issues. Had another 6 when I woke up this morning, plus a few singles for the Winter 2005 issue. I guess the word is getting out. I do have to get more of several issues re-printed this week as they were sold out a couple weeks ago. I even had to send my PERSONAL Spring issue out in the mail to fill an order. (I try to keep the first one off the press for my personal collection).
For those of you who just ordered these. I have to print them up this week, send them out to get collated, stapled and trimmed and then I get them back to be mailed. So it will be a few days before they are sent out.
I have the last article being sent to me today (my bf is on his way to take "Kid" to school and pick up the disk with the article written on it, so hopefully I can go print the Summer 2006 issue tomorrow. I have 2 Guest Writers in the upcoming Summer issue and after she had it all typed out.. it disappeared.. POOF!! So she had to re-write the whole thing.
I can hear my baby (gosling) in the mudroom yelling at me.. and I need to feed piggies, milk a goat and let the chickens out before I head out on my errands, so I best get going.. just wanted to say good morning to everyone before I left.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about
Blustery and thunderstormy all day.. today looks to be all blue skies. Which is good. I need to drive 50 miles out the other way (really bush) and take a few photos to finish up the summer issue. I can envision the picture, so I have to make it so.
WOW.. got alot of subscriptions over the last couple days for more back issues. Had another 6 when I woke up this morning, plus a few singles for the Winter 2005 issue. I guess the word is getting out. I do have to get more of several issues re-printed this week as they were sold out a couple weeks ago. I even had to send my PERSONAL Spring issue out in the mail to fill an order. (I try to keep the first one off the press for my personal collection).
For those of you who just ordered these. I have to print them up this week, send them out to get collated, stapled and trimmed and then I get them back to be mailed. So it will be a few days before they are sent out.
I have the last article being sent to me today (my bf is on his way to take "Kid" to school and pick up the disk with the article written on it, so hopefully I can go print the Summer 2006 issue tomorrow. I have 2 Guest Writers in the upcoming Summer issue and after she had it all typed out.. it disappeared.. POOF!! So she had to re-write the whole thing.
I can hear my baby (gosling) in the mudroom yelling at me.. and I need to feed piggies, milk a goat and let the chickens out before I head out on my errands, so I best get going.. just wanted to say good morning to everyone before I left.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about
June 6th, 2006
I went yesterday afternoon with my friend to look at a horse... the horse was a looser, but it was a great outing. Ok.. the horse has ALOT of potential, but that is another story...
I get home and "Kid" and bf run out to greet me and tell me they have a present for me... curious.. as I know they did not go anywhere.. I wondered what it was. Somehow I knew it was a living creature..
They opened the box when I finally got to the porch as it was weighed down with a lawn chair on top. Convinced a baby moose was NOT in it.. I was wondering what the next option was... Someone took the lawn chair off and lo and behold.. I saw a little cold wet body with 2 webbed feet.
My bf was weedeatering the fence line and had just got done when he saw a small creature run like crazy across the driveway and towards the sled dogs by the house. He was questioning what kind of crazy animal that was. He finally caught it and he and the boys looked ALL OVER our place and asked the neighbors if they had a goose nest on their property. Nothing... We have no idea where he came from.I set up a heat lamp in the mudroom for the gosling now called "Danny" (the boys had just watched the movie Pearl Harbor and the human Danny was a flyboy) and he (?) is a happy camper out there. I am glad that my bf saw it and saved it before it would have died. I saw a black fox again this morning, who I am sure would have liked that little guy as a tasty snack. We will turn it loose as soon as it can fend for itself on our back pond. Technically we have to pinion its wing, but since it was wildborn and I am going to raise it as non-domesticated as possible, I really do not want to do that. I want it to fly south as it is very very doubtful it can live the winter up here without heading south.
Evening Update:
Thunderstorms.. so much for corn planting this afternoon. My chore part of the day, started out when I went to let the various species out and check on all of them. All was well until I went out to the pigs. No pigs...
It monsooned last night and the top layer of the pig pen was wet.. except for a large spot where it was turned up to expose the dry earth underneath. It looked like a skirmish went on there. No pigs. I went into their house and walked in there... like stomped around and was yelling "piggy piggy".. and no pigs..
I look at the fence (which is 6-7 ft tall chain link) and no holes.. no pigs no nothing.. my bf gets home just at this time and I yell down to him that the pigs were missing. I was quite sure a cougar had grabbed them and hauled them out of there as the fence was perfect which it would not be, if a bear had crawled over it.
My bf comes up.. we look for pigs and then all of the sudden when he oinks for them.. they wake up and crawl out of the straw in their house where I had STEPPED RIGHT ON THEM!!! I have no idea how they hid themselves under it as the straw is about 4" deep now. But apparently they could.
My bf, who has raised 100's of hogs, laughed at me and said pigs get cold up here easily and when it is cooler will bury themselves in the straw.. .this I knew. Like I have said previously, I have raised every species and then some of livestock.. except pigs.. with the monsoon storm here, they decided to take a nap and read in bed or something.. but I cannot believe they did not move when I stepped on them however. I mean I am 140# and they are 25# each?
Got my primary fermentors stirred today.. and the one glass carboy with a fermentation lock is working well. I ought to be able to bottle soon on the one.I am thinking what I am going to do with 25# of Rhubarb in my spare fridge. I have not found a way that tastes good to me with Rhubarb, so I need to inquire with my bf what he would like done with it and then do that today since my outdoor day is messed up.I think some Potato-Onion bread might be good with dinner as well. It is just a gross day outside.. the thunder is just boom-boom-booming.. I do live in the mountains after all and the weather can get quite exciting.. I am just glad we have been having a bit of rain as it would not be good to have a wildfire.
CLICK HERE to see what "Down to the Roots" is all about
June 5th, 2006
The bear saga continues... last Wednesday I warned "Teenager" to look out for the bear when he went down to catch the school bus and lo and behold.. they were just at the next telephone pole away from him. Yep, there were two. A regular sized one and the big one. He says the big one at the shoulders, is mid-chest size on him (Teenager) and he is 6'3". We are now putting one of the trucks down there every morning for a school bus stop.
Our garden is up and my watering system is 90% done. The beans, potatoes, onions and brassicas are doing great. (For Newbies, Brassicas are the cabbage, broccoli, ect family). However, I need to plant corn, carrots and beets today as I did not want to plant any of them until the watering system was done. SO today is that day for that and I ought to be out there and not typing as the sun is going to be hot soon.
My friend did not pick up the goat milk yesterday for her baby and so I made goat milk vanilla custard and chocolate goat milk fudge out of it last night. We had company over and the fudge had not set up 100% set, so we tossed it over vanilla ice cream and topped with organic strawberries. Yummy!!!
I am also in the mood to take one of the trucks to the back 40 and pick up alot of that firewood that is cut into rounds and bring it up into the woodshed. We may as well start and get it out of there before Fall sets in. Soon all my extra time will be devoted to building a stone foundation for the writing cabin and the walls for the stone root cellar. I have been thinking more and more each day how I am going to set my forms.
Anything else exciting and noteworthy that has happened lately? Just running around alot the last few days. I have driven more than I normally do and it is driving me crazy. But we had alot of errands to run and I am the designated errand runner.My bf's birthday is coming up soon and I am thinking about getting him a weather station for his birthday. It has remote goodies to it to check the wind speed (which is good as we are seriously thinking about putting in a wind-solar hybrid power system) as well as digital rain and temperature gauges. There is no chance of him reading this and no one else knows.. so if you guys tell him I will know what source it came from *S*.
Oh... I guess I ought to tell you that I also started making wine this last week. I have 2 primary fermenters worth going, but now they are in glass carboys with fermentation locks. I will leave you in suspense as to what kinds they are. I figure they can drink them around Christmas/Yule time. I say "they", as I have about 1/4 cup of alcoholic beverages a year. This is the first time I have made wine since leaving my families homeplace which had a moderate sized vineyard. I do not know if my dad would be proud or giggle at me.
CLICK HERE "Down to the Roots" is all about
Our garden is up and my watering system is 90% done. The beans, potatoes, onions and brassicas are doing great. (For Newbies, Brassicas are the cabbage, broccoli, ect family). However, I need to plant corn, carrots and beets today as I did not want to plant any of them until the watering system was done. SO today is that day for that and I ought to be out there and not typing as the sun is going to be hot soon.
My friend did not pick up the goat milk yesterday for her baby and so I made goat milk vanilla custard and chocolate goat milk fudge out of it last night. We had company over and the fudge had not set up 100% set, so we tossed it over vanilla ice cream and topped with organic strawberries. Yummy!!!
I am also in the mood to take one of the trucks to the back 40 and pick up alot of that firewood that is cut into rounds and bring it up into the woodshed. We may as well start and get it out of there before Fall sets in. Soon all my extra time will be devoted to building a stone foundation for the writing cabin and the walls for the stone root cellar. I have been thinking more and more each day how I am going to set my forms.
Anything else exciting and noteworthy that has happened lately? Just running around alot the last few days. I have driven more than I normally do and it is driving me crazy. But we had alot of errands to run and I am the designated errand runner.My bf's birthday is coming up soon and I am thinking about getting him a weather station for his birthday. It has remote goodies to it to check the wind speed (which is good as we are seriously thinking about putting in a wind-solar hybrid power system) as well as digital rain and temperature gauges. There is no chance of him reading this and no one else knows.. so if you guys tell him I will know what source it came from *S*.
Oh... I guess I ought to tell you that I also started making wine this last week. I have 2 primary fermenters worth going, but now they are in glass carboys with fermentation locks. I will leave you in suspense as to what kinds they are. I figure they can drink them around Christmas/Yule time. I say "they", as I have about 1/4 cup of alcoholic beverages a year. This is the first time I have made wine since leaving my families homeplace which had a moderate sized vineyard. I do not know if my dad would be proud or giggle at me.
CLICK HERE "Down to the Roots" is all about
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)