Lazy and Grouchy

Sorry for the relatively long delay. My work schedule has been not exactly as I prefer it to be for the last month or so and this has resulted in extreme grouchiness on my part, which means no blogging. I usually work all my days in a row so I can have longer stretches off because I find it very hard to switch between days and nights (I work at night), so when I have only a few days off I do stuff like sleep until noon and then stumble around complaining about how the day is half gone for the next few hours and then I think 9:45 is an appropriate time to eat dinner. Also I try to cram a lot into my time off. And I get very grouchy about leaving. All of that make me feel like I don't have time to blog.

So for now you get some bullet-point style updates and that's it. But don't fret. I am back to my regular schedule and my glorious nine-day-off stretches starting Wednesday morning.

• We picked, canned, and froze almost 50 pounds of raspberries and Marion berries.
• In related news I had my first ever bee sting. It was dumb.
• I opened several aged cheeses. Some were good. One was quite good. Others not so much. I am frustrated and I am not sure exactly how to fix my mistakes.
• I made (and ate) pretty much butter from a friend's cow milk. I do love cream.
• I have tomatoes and cucumbers and peppers on a pretty regular basis now.
• We are wrapping up Grace's room construction.
• We ate another chicken.
• One of the baby goats had diarrhea, but I nursed him back to health and now he is perfect again.
• And those are the things. Pictures soon.

EXTREME EMERGENCY!!!

I mentioned in a previous post that I did not plant dill this year. I did go to some local nurseries but I could not locate any dill. There certainly is not enough time to grow some through seeds. So it appears that I am dill-less this year.

 This is sort of a big deal to me because I will soon be faced with about seven trillion pickling cucumbers. I must can pickles and if I have to buy dill at Safeway or something ridiculous like that I will, but I would like to save that for a worst case scenario. So this is a request for anyone who maybe planted too much dill or knows someone who did. Or maybe your neighbor did and you are comfortable with theft? Or maybe you know of someone in the area with dill for sale. Whatever works. If you can get me dill in any quantity I would appreciate it. I could trade you for pickles, cheese, milk, bread, eggs, money, praise.

Please help!

Thursday, July 14th

This week has been busy with house work. We had business, budget, and goal setting meetings early in the week (yes, we really operate this way) and with the garden chugging along and the goats growing and grazing away we are focusing all our energy (and money) on Grace's room remodel. We WILL finish before the start of school in late August. We are done with drywall and spackle now and we went supply shopping and got paint, primer, light fixtures, carpet, shelving, closet things, trim, and a few accessories. We are all set to get the room done in the next week or so and then we just need to get furniture, curtains, and a few more fancy bits and we will finally be done! We'll have pictures up soon! And then we'll be ready to start the next big project! What will it be? I know what it is, but I'm not telling.

Garden
We are eating out of the garden almost every day now! And our diet is getting more varied all the time. We have had greens and turnips galore of course, but now we are eating potatoes, broccoli, and cabbage too. We have had a pepper and a cucumber with plenty more of those just about ready as well as peas, beans, beets, summer squashes, carrots, and tomatoes coming soon. It seems so late in the year to be just getting some of these things, but remember, it was the wettest grayest summer in quite a long time and we got a late start. Plus with our climate it is about a month "earlier" here than it is in the valley, so we are not quite as behind as it seems.We have so many great improvements and expansions in the works too. Nothing is as good as having plenty of really good food all the time. And it's just so fun! We are taking with Grace's school about starting a school garden as well. Because we don't have enough to do.

Cheese
I have been taking a bit of a cheese break. I am mad at my cheese press and my aging box and am sulking about it. Plus I have been more excited about some other projects right now. It spite of that we have been just starting to eat some of the cheddars I put up a few months ago, and they have been pretty good. A little drier than I would like but very tasty. I will get my press and aging issues worked out soon and get back to work improving my cheeses. There is a ton of cheese ready to eat here soon, so I will have more of an idea of what I need to improve on.

Other Blog

Occasionally I write on another blog with some other rad ladies. I just posted about making some delicious feta cheese.

If you are interested here is the link:  http://ballsoutdomesticclub.blogspot.com/

There is also a link to it over there --> on the side bar.

PS: Let me know if you are interested in a taste of this feta! I have plenty to share with friendly friends. Like you!