Fair Frenzy

My life, well at least those precious spare moments of it, has been consumed by preparing for the county fair.  As I stated earlier, I'm attempting to be crowned the Dominatrix of Domesticity, aka Homemaker of the Year.  It's not faring well, no pun intended.

Friday I noticed one of the rabbits we were delighted to be showing had a rather large bald spot on the back of his neck.  If he sits as normal, its undetectable.  If he bends his head to munch a pinecone, his pretty pink skin calls to you.  I opened my e-mail to send a heads up to the lady in charge of the rabbits...

...Only to discover an e-mail from the lady in charge of the baked goods.  Apparently the recipes were due with the entry form, not with the items themselves as I thought.  Whoops.  Thankfully she was gracious and allowed me to submit them via e-mail, noting that I was a complete newby.  She commented that I was rather brave having never submitted anything before and now going for Homemaker of the Year.

That should have been my first clue that I was out of my league.

Yesterday, I checked in all my items.  42 of them to be exact.  I had spent a couple hours at least making up pretty little tags to put on everything, noting what was homegrown, grown from saved seed, an heirloom recipe, homegrown honey, soap ingredients, etc, a couple times mentioning the four kids in hopes of pity points.  But I also had my name on those tags.  So, yep, every single tag got ripped off.  I never thought I couldn't have my name showing.

So, that aside, I'm still glad to be attempting this.  I never did really expect to win.  It would be nice, obviously, but the challenge is the fun of it.  As crazy as this sounds, I need things like this to keep me sane.  When my life spins out of control and advice is fired at me to ditch the goats, mow the garden and for goodness sake, BUY a loaf of bread, most can't fathom that I need these little projects to set my world right again.  Nothing calms me like repotting plants.  My favorite sleepless night activity is prayer-knitting.  I don't pray well sitting still.  I need brainless motion, like knitting or running.  The chaos seems to settle when I hang I newly sewn garment in the closet.

With that said, here's my list of entries and what I personally think of them.  Mostly for my own record keeping purposes... because I most likely will be doing this again next year.

Baked Goods
1.  100% Whole Grain Bread- not very flashy, but any serious breadmaker will know this is a hard thing to do.  Well, hard IF you don't use freshly milled flour.  So, yes, this is great bread, if I do say so, but the rarity of it may not be fully appreciated. Blue Ribbon!
2. Peanut Butter Candy- Really nothing spectacular here.  I did them in turtle and heart molds so they look like fancy Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.  And that's about it.  Blue Ribbon!
3.  Carrot Cake- I make very yummy carrot cake.  Two special ingredients make it different: coconut oil in the cake part and homemade soft yogurt cheese in place of cream cheese for the icing.  I decorated this one with crushed walnuts using a pumpkin and a leaf cookie cutters as molds.  It lacked sharpness though.  I should have outlined it with dyed icing, but I neglected to submit that as part of the recipe so couldn't do so.  Blue Ribbon!
4. Apple Pie- An American favorite.  Using Mother Earth News' recipe for pie crust (BEST recipe EVER!) and granny smith apples a friend brought me from Georgia, I made an awesome pie!  I braided some dough and wrapped it around the lattice work for a fancy crust.  Some of the juice oozed over the crust so its not perfect looking, but I guarantee those bits will taste better!  BEST IN SHOW!
5. Chocolate Chip Cookies- No originality here.  Not even a unique recipe.  Only thing going for them is classic goodness.  And coconut oil.  Coconut oil makes everything better. Blue Ribbon!

Sewing
I won't complain but the results of this makes no sense at all.  The easiest items got blue ribbons yet the by far more complicated pattern and accessory only got a white?  They must weigh originality very high over actual skill.
6. Size 7 girl's nightgown and matching Laura Ingalls dust cap.  This came out pretty good.  No complaints as far as my critique can go. White Ribbon
7. Size 5 boy's pajama pants and matching embellished t-shirt.  Using the same fabric as the nightgown, the pants are classic, EASY pajama pants.  Nothing fancy.  But the shirt, though I didn't sew the t-shirt, it's my own unique idea for embellishing.  Not sure a judge will care though.  It has a rabbit (my son's choice) with a 3D floppy ear and fuzzy tail. Blue Ribbon!
8. Size 3 pajama set- It was supposed to be footed pajamas, but the wee lad didn't want "baby pajamas."  So I made those same super easy pants (out of the same fabric) and put a puppy on the shirt (with 3D ear) and made a set of matching slippers too. Blue Ribbon!

Open Agriculture
These results are about what I expected.  Except for the chives.  I thought those deserved better.  But I didn't expect a best in show either!
9. Borage- grown from seed.  Just starting to bloom, but a few leaves show some insect munching.  I'm not going to suddenly use pesticides to spare a bug a snack, especially when the bees love the borage so much.  Points off for that though. White Ribbon
10. Chives- grown from splits off my established patch.  Not very dense yet but still looks good.  Can't really hurt chives. White Ribbon
11. Mallow- grown from 2nd generation seed.  Was a nice sized plant before a rogue goat munched it down.  Trimmed up and just starting to flower.  Red Ribbon.
12. Roselle- also 2nd generation seed.  Also starting to flower.  Not as big as the mallow.  Has a few leaves with some discoloration.  Probably tired of the pot. Red Ribbon.
13.  Bok choy- looks good.  Will be ready to eat in 2 weeks or so. Completely missing from display!
14. Mint- taken from cuttings of my established plant.  Still recuperating from the summer heat.  Not as full and lush as I'd like, but all my mints tend to be a little long and stringy with small leaves right now.  Not very impressive at all though. White Ribbon
15.  Eggs- I only saved the pretty ones so this should do well for me. BEST IN SHOW!

Ornamentals
16. Calendula- grown from seed.  Plant is smaller than I had hoped, but there are a few buds that should open this week.  Once again, a little signs of bug snacking. Red Ribbon.
17. Petunia- you know my petunia story.  It looks healthy.  The purple bloom is gone, but two more should open this week.  Long and thin, but healthy. White Ribbon
18. Sunflower- grown from seed. It didn't branch out (mexican torch, multi-bloom variety), but is flowering, tall and thin.  Hurricane Sandy's winds whipped off the older leaves so its on a tall bare stalk.  Not impressive, but healthy.White Ribbon
19. Zinnia- like the sunflower, these are tall and skinny.  I put 3 in one pot and literally braided the stalks together and tied a ribbon around them.  The blooms are dying so honestly, they look pretty sad.  Oh well.White Ribbon

Crafts
This section has me completely baffled.  First of all, the soap... why would one bar take a blue ribbon and the others essentially get a "thanks for showing up"?  That's a mighty big swing.  I can only figure its that someone happened to like the fancy mold and didn't even consider what went in to making the soap themselves.  Sad about the state of my wreath and a little disappointed that the cupcake hat didn't do better, but it is a small item and they prefer full baby sets to be entered, not just a single hat.
20. Cupcake baby hat- hand knit.  No complaints from me. White Ribbon
21. Lavender soap in a goat milk mold- couldn't say it was cold process and not some cheater glycerin, melt and pour soap.  Hope they can figure that out. Blue Ribbon!
22- African Rain loofa bar (the oval one in the picture)- Home grown loofa with cold process soap poured around it.  Scent isn't as strong as I would have liked. Honorable Mention
23. Laundry soap- again, not sure anyone will know what they're looking at, but its basically homemade Fels Naptha. Honorable Mention
24. Chamomile Shampoo Soap- This is a soft soap on account of it being so conditioning and good for hair.  So it doesn't mold well.  It got some pock marks in it and is easily marred.  No way to explain why its so soft.  Again, I hope its a soap expert judging. Honorable Mention
25. Cabled Christmas Stocking- my first time doing cables.  It was fun.  I think it came out fine. Red Ribbon.
26. Super Dad Cape- all the kids have capes so Dad should too!  I had a rough sketch to go on for a pattern and unfortunately, it's not totally symmetrical. White Ribbon
27. Grapevine Wreath- all from stuff grown right here on our property.  Decorated with dried flowers.  I love the way it came out.  And then as soon as it left my hands someone dealt roughly with it.  Not sure what it will look like by the time judging comes along. No ribbon- and looking significantly more worn than when I submitted it.

Canning and preserving
I can't tell what jars are what from the distance they're at, and I submitted 15 items and can only locate 14, but of those 14 I have FIVE blue ribbons, EIGHT red ribbons, and ONE white ribbon.
28. Apple Butter- nothing notable good or bad. white
29. Apple sauce- has some black flecks from me catching it just as it was about to burn. red
30. Elderberry syrup- from wild elderberries. blue
31. Muscadine marmalade- best tasting jelly I've ever made.  From home grown muscadines. red
32. Spiced muscadine skins- 100 yr old recipe.  Pretty tasty, but I'm not sure anyone will know what to make of them. red
33. Zucchini pickles- heirloom recipe from homegrown zucchini. blue
34. Watermelon Rind Pickles- I'm not a fan, but they look pretty. red
35.  Watermelon rind jam- Yummy stuff. From a homegrown watermelon I picked too early. red
36. Roselle jam- tricky stuff to make on account you use the pectin in the seed pods to thicken it.  Finally made a good batch.  Very yummy.  Not sure anyone will know what roselle is let alone know what it should taste like. blue
37. Spiced honey- from homegrown honey. Oh boy is this good.  But how can you screw up honey? blue
38. Tarragon vinegar- from homegrown tarragon.  It looks pretty.  Don't know the stuff well enough to be a judge. blue 
39.  Rosemary vinegar- from homegrown herbs except garlic.  It tastes good to me, but again, I don't know much. red
40. Ground rabbit jerky- from homegrown rabbit.  Yummy!  Nice easy snack.  The kids love it.  Had to smack hands away to have enough for the fair. red
41. Dried ginger candies- Husbandman's favorite.  And they are good, if you like ginger. blue
42. Dried rosemary- part of it is from homegrown herbs.  But I ran out and had to buy another rosemary plant to fill the jar.  Nice vivid green even though its dry. red

*I also got a special merit award for canning, but no one could tell me what it was for.  One thought it was for some pickles, but the watermelon pickles only got a red and the zucchini pickles weren't tasted so I don't think I'd get an award for something purely based on looks. 

Today we turn in the rabbits.  We're supposed to turn in 3 but the one is molting so badly (but I did confirm that it is MOLTING and not some problem) that I really can't take him in.  The one that's important is also showing some molting signs, but not nearly so severe.  Farm girl has been practicing with this rabbit and it's so calm and forgiving that it's the only one she could manage in the show ring, I'm sure.  They're not exactly little rabbits and my girl, though 6, is a little peanut.  At 4 months old, its all she can lift.  As well as showmanship, she'll also be competing in the costume contest.  A medieval princess and Sir Hops-a-lot.  The rabbit (though a doe... she'll be a cross-dresser) has a knight costume and the girl has a medieval dress, both homemade.  I did a good trim and file job on the rabbit's claws because the dress is made from flimsy cheap material and can't take much.

I'll update with results as I know them.  Now that the preparation is done, let the fun begin!

The young 4-month old silver fox got a blue ribbon.  Our big, beautiful breeding buck got a red.  I can only figure that they discounted a lot for his fur lacking a lot of silvering and being bleached out by the sun in some spots.  Then the showmanship event was complete chaos.  Suffice to say we ended up sitting around the show ring for SEVEN hours... with pre-school aged three boys.  Very poorly planned and poorly run event.  No one knew what was going on.  Then when the girl was finally able to show her stuff, the rabbit was done.  She bit her twice and was very difficult to control.  The girl did well though.  I'm proud of her.  Now my complaints on the judges: they asked her ridiculous questions like "How many feet does a rabbit have?"  Of course she answered well.  But no questions so that she could really show what she knew- like things about eye infections, ear mites, abscesses, fur condition, conformation for meat production.  Then they ask if she can FLIP the rabbit!  NO!  A little six year old girl CANNOT flip an 8-pound rabbit!  Her trying, worst case scenario, can break the rabbit's back!  She did her best, did not flip, the rabbit was able to get away, but she brought her back and regained control.  This may be our last year with rabbits.  If they can do better than this, we'll go to showing goats and chickens.

My Petunia Miracle

Its been a rough few weeks.  I'm unable to give details, but suffice to say parenting isn't for sissies.  I've been short on patience, shorter on grace and often ready with a double-barreled, fully-loaded tongue ready to fire my furious frustrations out at anyone who happens to step in my path.

And all I could think is that I just can't go on like this.  I can't.  I can't do it.  I can't parent this child.  I don't have a clue what to do and everything I do appears to be the wrong thing.  I'm tired.  I'm burned out and I'm ready to just give up.

Now change gears with me.

I'm in the running for an award at the county fair called "Homemaker of the Year."  There are 5 different categories that I must enter something in and points are awarded for each item, depending on their quality.  The contestant with the most points wins.  So, true to my competitive nature, I decide to max out every single category so I have as many opportunities for point accumulation as possible.  Four ornamental plants are permitted for entry so on my entry form (which was due at the end of August, but I submitted in July to be sure my place was secure) I listed petunias.  You must have a plant for 5 months or propagate it yourself to be eligible.  No worries.  I can have petunias from seed by October, right?

I submit my form and THEN check my seed stash.  I know, cart before the horse... story of my life.  I had NO petunia seeds.  So I look in every local seed source for petunias.  Nothing.

I didn't spend much time fretting over it.  I didn't have time.  It was now or nothing and the "nothing" was apparently chosen for me.  Oh well.  That's a few points I'll miss out on.  I don't exactly expect to win anyway.

This morning was a pretty bad morning.  Literally, it was pretty crappy if I may be so crass.  My husband was taking one for the team and allowing me time outside to myself while he wrangled the young-uns.  I began setting aside plants that I'd chosen for the fair: repotting, pruning, selecting, fertilizing, etc.  A few weeks ago I noticed a rogue plant growing among some lettuce.  I didn't pull it out because it didn't look like one of my common weeds.  And the kids help me plant seeds so to have a bok choy among the dill or a calendula among the mustard greens is really no rare thing.  I just let this plant grow and figured soon enough it would show its true colors.

Never did I expect those colors to be those of a deep purple petunia.

So this morning, when I was taking my frustrations out on my weeds, tears streaming down my face, I find this petunia.

Now, travel through time with me.  The last time I planted petunias would have been a year ago.  I recycle the dirt in my seed boxes, but it always gets mixed up, added to, turned around, shuffled here and there.  This dirt must have grown 15-20 different types of seedlings by now and has remained continuously warm and moist.  Petunias don't survive our summers.  Petunia seed should definitely not. Yet, NOW, 10 days before I submit all my entries, I have a blooming petunia.

And then my God, my precious, sweet, always loving, always understanding Father spoke so clearly.

What you thought you didn't have and couldn't find I have always provided for you. Trust me.

If I will look through the weeds, I'll find the seed of patience.  If I'll hold fast, I'll find ever-blooming love.  He doesn't wipe away the problems, He doesn't say it's going to be easy.  He says, "We do hard things.  Its who we are.  But you can do it.  I'm with you.  Now come on.  Let's go love a child."

A year ago, He knew I was going to need a petunia.  And not for the fair.  Right now I don't give two cents for the fair.  If I did, I'd be sewing, not recording this precious memory.  But if it weren't for the fair, I never would have paid much attention to my lack of petunias and the miracle this one is.  He knew, a year ago, that I'd need to know right now that He had traveled this road ahead of me.

And what a beautiful way to communicate it to me.  I do believe the petunia has become my favorite flower. The question is will I ever be able to look at one without crying?

I wonder what seeds He's storing for me this year.

The End of an Era- Redneck Style

We had a time of sentimentality this weekend.  Time passes and it almost is like bidding a dear friend goodbye forever.

When we first moved to this house and started raising food on our single acre, we had no children but the one in my womb.  We also didn't have 2 nickles to rub together.  Money was so tight that if it wasn't redneck and hillbilly, it just wasn't.  

We got goats when I was pregnant with #2.  We put grain in a barrel in the porch (where the chicken grain was stored) and square bales of hay sat on pallets in the garage.  One, maybe 2 bales of hay was all that could be stored at a time or else Husbandman's car (who's was the only one short enough to fit at all in front of the hay) was left outside until the goats worked their way through the hay.

This all changed when we acquired a new shed.  We bought the property with two metal sheds, or shall I say two rust sheds.  One is inside the pasture and cumbersome to get to.  The other stores lawnmowers, the rototiller and other items.  So this new acquisition could be considered our barn.  First of all, its a much higher quality shed and thus has a floor and no rusty holes for mice and rats and snakes to use as private entrances.  Secondly, its spacious.  We had decided to purchase a shed and , for frugality sake, measured how small it could be and still hold all the things we wanted to store in it.  Then friends who were moving sold us their shed, which happened to be double the space for less than we had anticipated spending for the bare minimum.  So the next trip to the feed store was a big trip, with the trailer, buying 6-8 weeks worth of feed.  Previously we hauled out to the feed store every 7 to 10 days.  Its a 25 minute drive one way and I couldn't go and have room for a bale of hay with all 4 kids.  Husbandman couldn't go after work and still bring home the one child who attends preschool as he usually does.  So doing fewer trips with a trailer and storing large quantities is a very welcomed change.

But that meant disassembling the pallet rack we made for the hay.  And sweeping all the hay, for the last time, out of the garage.  And rearranging that whole area to hold bikes and kid toys.  And it was incredibly nostalgic, though you may call me nuts.

I don't think it would have affected me so much if it had only been the final removal of all things livestock from the garage.  But we also made the decision to abandon our small garden.  This was the very first garden we put it.  We had 2 very young children, the youngest just 3 months old.  We were reading a Mother Earth News to each other one May morning and came across an article about laying newspaper down right on top of grass and weeds, compost on top of that and planting straight into the compost.  We had a pile of left over pennysavers from our paper route and we had friends with horses who had offered us all the compost we wanted.  We started that very day.  I still remember the little guy sleeping in his baby bucket in the shade of a tree and our daughter using her shovel to spread compost and handing me papers to lay on the grass.

And since, like I said, we had no room in the budget for actual fencing, but had rabbits and turtles and lots of other creatures who would love to eat this garden, we had to find a fence.  So pallets again.  My husband came home with load after load of pallets from a company next door to his office.  Slowly the pallet fence grew until it stretched the entire perimeter.  But that wasn't the end of the pallets.  They kept coming and soon I had tables for planting seeds.  You see, if I plant seeds directly in the garden, ants and squirrels make off with them.  So I put them in pots which cannot be left on the ground or they suffer the same fate as well as getting poked and dumped by little hands.  My seedlings had to be elevated to have any hope of survival. So beside that garden were my stacks of pallets that acted as seed tables.  And things grew and we ate.  And we wanted more space so the very next year we did the same thing to an area more than double the size.  I kept both going and life was good.

Then this summer happened.  Appointments and busy-ness and a rogue goat wiped out that garden.  Nothing was growing in it but roselle and weeds.  The weeds were so thick I couldn't see the scrap tile pieces I used as my walkways.  I finally decided I needed to mow it.  By this time the pallet fence had fallen down and we had enough money to buy 2' fencing and enough step-in posts to keep the critters out.  So I took down the wire fencing, which was more like pulling it out with how entangled it was with weeds, and went at it with a lawnmower.  I then covered the entire thing with plastic, still planning to use this as a garden in the fall.

And about a year ago my seed tables were replaced by nice stainless steel tables a friend bought from a restaurant going out of business.  She had her husband were going to be slaughtering a few chickens at our house and were less than impressed by our set-up... which was an overturned Rubbermaid tote with a plastic bag taped to it... found these tables and bought them for permanent storage here.  I put my seed pots on them and when we slaughter something, the seed pots get set on the ground, the surface gets scrubbed and we have a beautiful processing area.  Those tables were kept in front of the little garden, right along the drive way.  And had a tendency to get just as weedy as the garden.

It got to be that when I'd drive up to the house and look at it objectively, as I sometimes do to see the biggest eye-sores, these tables with the weeds and the pots and buckets and, well, junk, they really were quite a pimple on the face of our property.  So we moved these tables to alongside the new shed which helped it blend in a little better too.

But this weekend, while looking at the little garden, and thinking about building raised beds around the perimeter as a weed-proof wall, and the 2 pecan trees, 1 citrus tree, 2 pomegranate trees a host of persimmon trees and a loquat tree we'd like to find places for, I simply pulled up the plastic, dug out the tiles and decided to let it go.  The established grapevines are here as well as the roselle which I'm not sure will be a perennial or what so its not like the land is carved from the face of the earth and left as an empty pit.  I'll decide what trees will occupy this site and how, along with pineapples, strawberries and that thorny dragon fruit,but it will no longer hold garden beds.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the neighbors will still have opportunities to groan and our necks will be as red as ever, but for us, for now, it feels like things have really changed.  Having extra income to buy supplies to be able to do something properly has made a huge difference.  I like the difference, don't get me wrong, but the memories are sweet.  So very sweet.  My life is so rich I could live it over and over and over and never grow tired of it.  Rich or poor, enough or in want, we have always had such precious memories.  May this be the case forever.

Snake Attack!

 A couple weeks ago we got these cute little puff balls.  20 red stars, 5 Americanas, and 1 specialty bird (that's probably a rooster we'll have to slaughter).  We got the red stars to replace our layers who just aren't doing too well anymore.  The Americanas were thrown in because 25 was the minimum order.  And McMurray's threw in the special little guy.  They arrived all healthy and doing great.  Not a single death or even one so much as go weak in the bunch.  Very impressive, McMurray!

 Meet the yellow rat snake.  I'd seen him around before.  Here he is in a tree branch over the rabbits early one morning.  It was shortly after a crop of babies were born and I knew that thing had been prowling around trying to get into the rabbit hutch.  Thankfully, it couldn't. 

Then one afternoon I followed the family outside and noticed a dead chick 3 days after they arrived.  Usually I see them go weak before they suddenly die so I was really surprised.  I was looking at that chick trying to figure out what happened when I saw ANOTHER dead chick.  Then I got concerned about mold in the feed or something toxic that would run through all of them.  It wasn't for another minute or so that I actually saw the culprit... that snake was sitting coiled up, half buried in paper shreddings, too fat to slither out the hole it came in.  Husbandman grabbed the snake with a pair of garden clompers and dealt with it savagely while I grabbed chicks for a head count.  It was determined and confirmed that this snake ate 3 chicks and killed 2 more.  And if those 2 had not been laying there dead I may have never looked carefully enough to even see the snake!  We did our best to patch the small hole in the hardware cloth that it came through, but the very next day when I saw a black snake lurking around, I got nervous.  Angel has been spending her days sleeping in the porch lately. I gave her the boot which made her sleep in the garage.  I'm not sure something as silent as a snake would actually rouse her enough to do anything about it, but it was something.  And that black snake has not been around.  It probably is also helpful that I mowed the garden closest to the house.  The one Dulci kept eating so absolutely nothing was growing... yep, had weeds knee high.  It's mowed and covered in clear plastic to kill nematodes and weed seeds so is much less inviting for slithery friends.

Of the birds that were lost, it was 4 red stars and 1 Americana.  Certainly not the ones I would have chosen to dispense with, but I don't supposed I would have made any deal with Mr. Rat Snake if he had asked for a bargain.  What it has done is made us aware of every little hole in that pen.  And the kids are on self-appointed snake duty, running out whenever they get the whim to check for snakes.  I can't blame them.  I'm jumpy too.

Any Given Day

There's a reason my house is really never wonderfully kept.  Its called PROJECTS.  My best friend and my worst enemy.  Truth is I love projects.  The newer the better.  I do finish some too, but usually not before I start 3 or 4 more.

So here's a picture of my ironing board.  The ironing got done on Tuesday so it was free to gather a few other projects that got shifted from place to place.

Any given day you can see at least a dozen projects in process.  Today, they happen to be:

1. The fabric is laid out with pattern pieces for the kids' Christmas pajamas waiting for enough time with a big area to spread it out and cut the pieces out.

2. The piano board I just finished drawing yesterday to use for the elementary music class I'm teaching to local homeschool kids.

3.  The bag holds pictures and mementos to be made into a scrapbook for the newest temporary addition.

4. There's a pack of guitar strings waiting to be put on the guitar that has gotten pulled out and dusted off for this music class I'm teaching.  (I should also note that I was only supposed to be the assistant teacher, but the actual teacher stepped down a week before classes started so I'm kinda scrambling to get plans and ideas together!)

5. The papers are blank lesson plan sheets I printed out for our next unit in Tapestry of Grace.  I hope to plan a little of next unit before its suddenly Sunday night the day before unit 2 is to roll out.

(now lets think about what isn't in the picture)

6. I have 2 tubs of flowers drying to decorate a grapevine wreath.

7.  I just finished rendering about 30 pounds of beef tallow in the crock pot which ran day and night for 6 days.  I'd scoop off what had melted and filter it through a cheesecloth and into jars.  The gloppy mess is still on the porch, as well as the smell, waiting for it to cool enough to clean it... but I still probably won't do it until tomorrow.

8. My knitting bag has a Christmas stocking started for that same newest addition.

9. I have no less than 8 cubic feet of mending to do.

10. Soap recipes are pulled out and perused to decide what to make next.  Newly arrived molds, scents and natural dyes are also sitting on the counter itching to be used!

11.  Boxes of bee equipment are waiting for Husbandman to construct frames and fill some of those frames with foundation.  I don't do too much of that so I usually just knit and keep him company while he works on it.

(now for the outside!)

12. The small garden is being solarized and the wire fence is torn down but not yet cut up or evaluated to be salvaged or thrown away.

13.  The big garden has a pile of stones outside of it for constructing part of a garden wall.

14.  Huge pieces of wood and metal roofing as well as long beams and poles are waiting for our milking shelter to be constructed.

15. We built big T's for our new grape arbor.  And the vines are planted.  Now we just need to attach wires from the top beams, diagonally down to the vertical beam for the vines to climb.

16.  Around each vine are cinder blocks, some filled with dirt and holding plants.  I'd like a plant, pretty or herbal, to fill each cell.  About 75% are still empty.

17.  Plans for a treehouse are sitting in the filing cabinet.  We thought we'd have time to build it for Christmas.  Not likely.

18.  A pile of concrete pavers were acquired from friends who moved.  Once the milking shelter is built, we'll lay these pavers underneath.

19.  The new shed which is our new feed storage area needs a gigantic window cut into it and redone out toward the pasture fence where the feed trough will be.

20.  A piece of 3' diameter pipe is cut in half for said feed trough.

21.  An enormous gate was again acquired from those moving friends.  Its waiting for us to do a complete overhaul of the pasture common area and move the gate from where it is now to further down the fence row.

22.  Dulci is pregnant and waiting in Copper's bachelor pad for us to overhaul the fencing all along the back of the pasture where she's able to easily escape multiple times a day.  And for that I'm waiting for cooler weather.

(and on the list but not yet started)

23. A 3rd and final attempt at mushroom logs.

24. Building raised beds around the entire perimeter of each garden.

25. Repair and reinforce chicken pens.

26. Few more things to can and preserve.

27. Begin working with the farm girl on rabbit showmanship.

So there.  If I didn't feel busy before, I do now!   Just understand, I never apologize for the mess, inside or out.  If it were actually a rare occurance I might do such a thing.  But its always like this, and unless a zebra can change its stripes, it always will be.  Just different projects, different stages, different places.  Maybe a good goal would be to have a touch fewer, but if someone would just invent more Saturdays we'd have no problems with that.  Right?

Miscellaneous

 One long post about several completely unrelated topics. 

My hero knew about some wild elderberry trees and snagged me a pile of berries.  The girl child and I sat in front of  a movie and tediously picked them off the stems and I made some syrup for eating or for helping any sickies get better this winter.  Yummy stuff!

 Meet my new soap bazookas.  2" PVC with a cap at 1 end.  Little bit difficult to fill with no extra hands around.  (Correction... no extra hands around that would actually hold it still).  My main concern was how I was going to get the soap out.  I planned to make a plunger of some kind, but I ended up not needing to.  First of all, it takes at least a week for soap to set in these things.  So I poured it and left it in a corner for a good long while (I'm good at that).  Then I stuck them in the freezer for a day.  Then I pulled them out, let them thaw some (because of interruptions not because I know its necessary- it may not be) and they literally just slowly slid out.  It was great!  So now I have nice round bars that look a lot nicer than my lopsided cuts from a casserole dish.

 Here are a couple kids picking wild grapes.  We have a whole mess of nice, big, juicy, cultivated grapes to pick and they opted to pick the wild ones.  The next day the other 2 kids (unpictured) decided to shove said grapes up their noses.  I bulb syringe got them out, but not without some kicking and flailing and one boy being quite certain he was not coming out of that situation alive.  Now you can understand why the addition of 1 more toddler boy has completely wiped out every thought of spare time I ever thought I had.

And just a post to say I love my dog.  Angel has been accompanying me on morning runs while its dark and creepy.  She alerted me to a stray dog up ahead where I would have run straight into it before knowing there was something needing to be avoided.  And she's gotten to where she simply trots beside me instead of crossing back and forth in front of me in her drive to explore.  And the really funny part is when she comes home she's too tired to chase the goats to the milking table in the morning.  She just flops and lets them walk.  She's a great dog.

And something that has no picture as of yet, eggplant.  Last year I had big beautiful plants and no fruit.  So this year I tried a few more varieties... meaning I have about a dozen different plants.  And they are all going gangbusters this year!  I can't give away all my eggplant!  I've made eggplant parmesian, eggplant balls, eggplant lasagna, stirfried eggplant, battered and fried eggplant, every eggplant anything I can think of.  There are worse problems to have, but I wish I had okra to through in there too.  But Dulci has figured out how to easily escape the pasture and ate my garden down to nubs.  She's now clad with a cow bell and housed with Copper and his 7' fence.  Its time for her to be bred anyway, but we'll have to do some major fence overhaul before letting her back with the others.

And I think this catches me up on the main goings-on.  We're starting our homeschool year next week so it may be the last post until that somewhat new endeavor finds its groove again too. 

Rabbit update

Once again, so much to report.  So the last I mentioned was that all of Cream's babies died and we acquired silver foxes.  I bred Maxwell (the silver fox buck) to Sugar and Cream.  Sugar had 8 babies born March 15.  7 survived. Cream  then had 13 babies on March 19.  Unfortunately, they widdled down to 4 in the week that followed.  These have all been slaughtered and eaten or waiting to be eaten by now.

At the end of May I took Mocha, Java and Maxwell to a rabbit show... where Maxwell took 1st, Mocha took 2nd and Java took 3rd.  It was helpful that only 1 other breeder had silver foxes and she had only brought juveniles who hadn't begun to silver yet.  Fur is a major portion of their points. 
We had decided already to risk breeding in the summer so when we returned home, we promptly bred Mocha with Maxwell.  We did this so the girl child would have a silver fox, a smaller silver fox, to show at the fair.  A small girl needs a small bunny.  So we set Mocha up with a pen in the porch with a fan that stayed on her 24-7.  We also knew we needed to breed quickly to catch Maxwell before he went sterile from the summer heat.  So we bred them and 5 weeks later had 6 bunnies.  We figured if none of them survived, we'd just buy a smaller breed bunny for her to show, but we were hopeful.  And they ALL survived!  Compare that with all our previous breeds and bunnies where every baby from the first kit died to silver foxes where she had 6 and all are still doing great!  Very pleased.  Next week we'll wean them and examine them, chosing the one for show, the ones for sale and the ones for eating. 

Just adding a quick picture of our rabbitry.  You can't see the pen all the way on the left much, but there's 5 holes for breeding stock.  When babies are weaned (or if there's too many to stay in the normal hole), they are moved to the large pen on the right.  Nothing fancy, but its on the shadiest, coolest area of the property and no predators have gotten in.  A snake lingered in a tree one morning and a racoon was lurking about another morning, but they have not returned.  Mostly due to Angel, I suspect.