Oh Deere

Everyone has chores to do. It is part of life and especially part of family life. Many hands make light work, or in the case of young children, many hands make much more work, at least until they are accomplished at a certain task.

Our older girls had daily and weekly chores to do. Unless I lived in a fantasy world, I don't remember much complaining when they were young. When they were teenagers, 2/3 of them had to be threatened into cleaning their rooms. One in particular, who shall remain nameless, even resorted to let me clean her room, ridding it of excess at my discretion. That girl woman told me this very day that she hates cleaning. Sigh.

Now Athena is different from the others. She said to me, and I quote, "I am not much made for working. I would rather play." Dear child. :\  She has daily chores to do that she doesn't mind and then some that she does. Since we moved here her chores have been multiplied but I, for one, think that is good. Nothing wrong with hard work.

She has daily inside chores like every kid. Make your bed, set the table, dry the dishes, etc...She usually feeds the animals their evening meal. She picks up dog poop. She fills water bowls and helps with the grooming. She helps Dad pick up sticks and pick rocks. It has been so hot lately that these chores have not been her favorite. Still she does them, often at a speed that wouldn't even register. Her dad says "If she moved any slower she would be going backwards."  So dad decided that she should have a more exciting job to do. Cut grass.

When she was told of the news she was not at all excited but more nervous than anything. She wanted all the details, all of the instructions up front. She wanted to know if it was safe. Dad said it was but she had to ask me just to make sure. Some things dad says are perfectly safe, mom has a different opinion about. This, I told her was safe. The mower shuts down if weight is lifted off the seat.

 

She took her job seriously. She was nervous at first. She wanted to learn to do it right. She has practiced several times already, just to get the hand of it. Paul hasn't turned the mower blade on yet as she is just getting to know the mower. Next weekend she'll cut grass for real.

 

 

 

She says she needs some more practice and then she'll need a plan when she finally tackles the grass. This job will be one she won't grumble about for a while at least. 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 

 

Are You Happy?

In the past month or so many people have commented to me about happiness. "Are you as happy as you thought you'd be?". "Do you like it as much as you thought you would?"  "You seem so happy!"  "I have never seen you look so happy."  It seems to be a common thread in my encounters with people.

Let me tell you the answer to all of those questions. I have wanted this for almost forty years. Forty years!! It wasn't always in the forefront. My first love of the country and my first desire to live in the country is documented here. And now I am here. The place I always wanted to be.

Every day, every single day I look around in wonder and am so thankful that I have the privilege of living here.

Every day I have more work to do than I have ever done before and I love it.

Every day there are animals to tend to, compost to be fiddled with, dog poop to pick up, things to be built.

Every day I find more and more bruises and wonder where they came from. (I may need some safety boots as I set a pallet down right on top of my foot. Ouch.)

Every day I feed my family, tidy the house, do a little home school related planning.

Every day as I sit on my front porch and have my glass of wine I see a forest of trees. And as far as I can see, all those trees belong to me. Or I am a steward of them in reality.

Every day I hear the owls. See the moon. Listen to the coyotes. See the sun rise. Laugh at the hummingbirds trying to spear each other at the feeder. Listen to the grey catbird, the finches and the noisy blue jays.

Every day I watch Athena explore, catch frogs (and my are there a lot of frogs), laugh and play and almost every day at some point she says "I like life here."
Am I happy here? I couldn't be more!

Dinner Party

 

Weekends seem to go by so quickly. We work outside almost all day. Both days. It makes for sound sleep, I tell you. We would like to keep Sunday as a separate day. A day set apart for fun and relaxation. We aren't there yet and although we do spend some relaxing time during the weekend it has mostly been filled with work.

 

It is not all drudgery though, except for the relentless horseflies! I like to work. I like to do manual labour. Each day I find new bruises and scrapes. I can't seem to keep my clothing clean for more than a few minutes and Athena more often than not looks like a ragamuffin. She is long overdue for a haircut as well. That is on the agenda for this week.

 

So yesterday we had a our neighbors down the road come up for dinner. It was long overdue. I love having company for dinner and these farm kids ate up everything on their plates and went back for more! My kind of kids. And this particular family can't go anywhere without their dogs tagging along. They are good dogs. Nice dogs. We love when they come and so do our pups.

 

The one lying down is Athena (can you believe that?). The is about 150lbs of pit bull cross. The has scars across her face, likely from a bear encounter.

The golden retriever/coyote cross is Jules. Her owners say "she is her own dog." And she is. She is a non conformist. Nice girl. Athena's (the girl) favorite.

 

 

The big black dog is Cadillac. He is 130lbs of Great Dane/lab. His head is HUGE. Plus, he thinks he is a lap dog. So friendly and gentle.

 

 

Of course there are also our dogs. Haven't they grown? Max, the dark one, wants to be BFFs with all the dogs. In an annoying way. He likes to lick their faces and all three of the bigs gave him a warning growl at one point in the evening. Jack, on the right, likes them well enough but likes to keep a little apart. He'll be the good guard dog for our farm. I can tell already.

But this girl is the queen. She is old and she is tough and she is the alpha dog for sure.

When all 5 dogs were up on the front porch and I opened the front door, the REAL queen rushed out and in her fury of spitting/hissing/scratching that lasted 5 seconds sent four big dogs off the deck in no time at all. Athena (the dog) stood there unfazed and was probably saying to herself "Do you know you have a cone on your head and that you look ridiculous?"

It was a good day. Good company, good food, busy dirty children and happy dogs.

The Week In Pictures

 

Put 'em Up

I do so love preserving the harvest. It is one of my favorite things and reminds me that my favorite season is on its way. The ping of the jars sealing is music to my ears. Sadly, this year I don't have a garden. I have a cherry tomato plant and a cucumber vine on my front porch and two cedar bins full of herbs that I brought from my old house. Nothing to speak of and certainly nothing to can.

What I do have is a husband who regularly calls on the Hutterite colonies as part of his job. They are always willing to sell their produce at very low prices. Low prices because they want the same in return from Paul. Either way we get some lovely food from them. Pickling cucumber are one of my favorite. Last year my dills were a soggy mess. The flavor was great, the texture not so much. This year I found the book Canning For A New Generation, (which I love and have subsequently ordered from Chapters) and the book told me to cut off the blossom end of the cucumbers so they don't get soft. Who knew? Probably all of you reading this blog, that is who. So I took that advice and a recipe from that book and made the Long fermented Kosher Dill recipe. They are in the basement in a crock and the results have yet to be determined. The process was easy peasy and I have been known to buy dill pickles from restaurants if I find a good one.

 

 

Organic fruit is another thing in abundance this year. At Costco anyway. I bought strawberries and blueberries. I froze 9 cups of blueberries and made blueberry jam and some muffins as well. The low sugar recipe from the book Back to Basics was so good. I am not a sugar fan (as you can tell by my love for all things salty) and these muffins were so good. 3T sugar for the entire batch.

I used Pamona's Pectin for the first time for the jam. Unfortunately I didn't mash up the strawberries enough so the jam kind of separated. After the jar is opened and it is mixed up it tastes fine. For the blueberry jam I used the food processor instead of a potato masher and got excellent results. As I mentioned before I got rhubarb from a neighbor and made 6 jars of jam and 3 larger jars of maple stewed rhubarb. 

I tried my hand at a teeny tiny batch of sauerkraut, again from the Canning For A New Generation book. It will be ready in a day or two. I can't wait to try that out. I am new to fermenting food so time will tell. I'll need to get some Mennonite Farmers Sausage to go with it.

 

And this is the reality of a day in the kitchen putting food by. Not pretty but totally worth every bit of work.