Better as a movie

It's been a difficult couple of weeks. Life keeps lobbing things at us and those we love – the good, the bad and the ugly. I realize that is life, but the frequency seems to be picking up – kinda like one of those carnival skill tests that starts out easy enough but then goes faster and faster until it is impossible to keep up.

Some of the good:

Last week I got a dehydrator full of prunes dried and bagged, and a crockpot full of rosemary prune butter (thanks to Laura's suggestion; it's tasty!) cooked down and canned.

Brian went on a church youth group campout this weekend, giving Rick and me a rare weekend alone. Sabbath afternoon we went on a little photo safari to a nearby wildlife refuge (photos later, maybe), followed by a delish dinner at one of our favorite restaurants.

Some of the bad:

This morning someone called from church with a plea for me/us to accompany her on a short whale-watching excursion. Rick felt he really needed to take advantage of the last dry day in the forecast to start spreading manure, but told me I was free to go. I was going to clean the house in preparation for a visit from my folks, but their visit had to be postponed (see "ugly") so I didn't feel like I could easily turn her down. I should have. Oh, I enjoyed the scenery, the cooperative gray whale and all the sea birds . . . for awhile. As my family knows, I am prone to motion sickness. And in spite of what Mythbusters and Food Detectives say, ginger did NOT prove an effective treatment for nausea. I'm still not quite over my kinetosis . . . and the apples are still waiting to be sauced.

Some of the ugly:
The devil has been playing hard ball the last couple weeks. A little over a week ago, my ex-SIL was killed in a motorcycle accident. Unfortunately, the ensuing confusion/corruption regarding her estate has made a difficult situation for my niece even worse; my folks' involvement on her behalf is what is delaying their visit.

Last Friday, my husband reached the difficult decision to put down his old cutting horse after a 20+ year partnership. It was hard on all of us.

Today one of the moms from our homeschool co-op, and a friend of mine, died as a result of a brain hemorrhage she suffered a little over two weeks ago. She was only in her 30s, and leaves a husband, two young boys, parents, a sister. Yeah; sometimes life sucks.

That's some of what we've been dealing with at . . .

Collecting colors

I know I'm not the only one that marvels at the subtle variety of colors in the eggs the girls give us:

Nor the only one who finds "plain ol' brown" anything but:

Even the colors we so cleverly "create"

are only borrowed from the evening sky.

That's it for today from . . .

Promises, pears and pickles

I have sheepy shots, as promised.

Sara recently posted some sweet pix of sitting with her new sheep, and it made me realize how long it's been since I've done that. With all that's on my plate and no lambs to make friends with this year, my old friends just haven't gotten the attention we all enjoy so much. Thanks to Sara, I took a little time to remedy that....

Browning and Blake are in the Sheep Sheraton. It is not a good idea to go in and schmooze with a ram, but perfectly fine to give a respectful fellow some loving scritches over the half-wall. (Browning couldn't be bothered; there was fresh hay to eat.)

The other three wethers and Bramble are hanging out in the wooded lot. I had to laugh at Bingaling bedded down under the feeder:

When I upended a bucket and sat down for a chat, Bramble and Bittersweet came over to say "Hi," but Bing wanted more and I was happy to oblige.

Big Bart was too suspicious to approach:

I'll have to work on that this winter in the sheepfold!

Today, processing the second batch of soup, making pickles and canning prunes were on my agenda, but last night Rick brought home two bulging bags of groundfall pears from a client's place. Sigh. I couldn't just throw them to the chickens!

So besides another five quarts of condensed tomato soup, I've added seven quarts of ginger pear sauce to the pantry, and a crockpot full of ginger pear butter is simmering as I type.

Break time's over. Let's see if I can knock out a couple cannersful of dill pickles before bed!

Back to the salt brines at . . .

The heat returns

Of course. Because I spent yesterday canning. I think it's some sort of cosmic requirement that it MUST be hot during canning season.

After our wonderful rain and some cool, overcast days last week, this week dawned sunny and warm. The next few days are headed for the 90s again! :-/  Oh well, summer deserves a "last gasp," and it'll stretch out the garden's production.

As predicted, the rain brought nearly instant green. See the green haze across the dry lot?

Unfortunately, I think it's all weeds.

I was going to pick our own prunes and apples and work on them yesterday, but a farm store chain sent out an email that all remaining produce from last week's boxed produce promotion would be 50% on Sunday only. Hoping to score enough tomatoes to restock our pantry shelves, I drove into town to check it out. Came home with two big boxes of RIPE tomatoes, a box of pickling cukes and a bunch of dill. Finished the day with 21 quarts of canned tomatoes, five quarts of condensed tomato soup (and enough puree for another batch in the frig), and three jars of pickles lacto-fermenting on my kitchen counter. Since the rest of the cukes won't wait the 2+ weeks it will take to see how those pickles turn out, I'll have to put them up conventionally.

Very timely addition; I was down to my last two quarts!

The hens enjoy the cast-offs and trimmings

One of our Buff Orpington hens went broody at least 2 1/2 weeks ago, and is still at it.

I've never had a broody hen before. She's a determined thing! If you pick her up and set her on the floor, she'll just brood there for awhile. So we've taken to putting her out in the hen yard, where she will usually scratch around for a bit before going back to her – empty – nest box. That's right, she's not sitting on anything. Silly, stubborn girl.

I hope she doesn't waste away!

I have lots of sheep photos to share, but this has gotten long enough and I have spent too much time on the computer already. Produce waits for no woman!

Full steam(y) ahead, at . . .