Daydreaming while waiting impatiently!

[tortoise]

We are back to cooler temperatures and I've been feeling better.

On Saturday I took down ugly chicken wallpaper boarder in my kitchen and painted my kitchen yellow!

My MIL and SIL visited Sunday, so i didn't do much other than clean and pick tomatoes. Sunday afternoon was comfortably warm and sunny. I got tachy in the garden and before I know it I'm laying in the garden and DH is driving the car down to the garden to pick me [and the veggies] up. Totally normal occurrence around here, unfortunately. At least with this med it's limited to heat, sunshine, too much exercise.

Yesterday I cooked and canned. I picked apples and crabapples. I made spiced crabapples and canned half the batch. I made 2 batches of bread, spice cake from scratch. I made applesauce from windfalls picked up over the weekend - just made up to 1 quart. I made braised venison loin with navy beans and onions for supper.

I was up late (12:30 a.m.!) because DS10 thought he could get away with not rinsing dishes before putting them in the dishwasher circa 7 p.m. If he won't follow directions he can learn why the directions exist by cleaning up after his mistakes. I had him handwash everything coming out of the dishwasher. He thought some would come clean in the dishwasher so he let them and ran the next load. No surprise to me, not only did those few dishes no come clean, but they got everything else dirty, so he had to handwash everything in the dishwasher again. . C'mon Kiddo, get it together! And after all that, I caught him reading a book with DS2's nightlight at 12:30 a.m. I hope he is tired and has a bad day at school - natural consequences.

I've had a late, slow morning. DS2 is watching a movie and I'm going to try to take a nap!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

I got tachy in the garden and before I know it I'm laying in the garden and DH is driving the car down to the garden to pick me [and the veggies] up. Totally normal occurrence around here, unfortunately. At least with this med it's limited to heat, sunshine, too much exercise.

Holy Cow! I don't know how you do it. You have that episode and then you get up and keep going and do more in a day than most people do WITHOUT your issue! I am in awe!

 

[milkmansdaughter]

Mmmm love spiced crabapples. There's a small tree at the very edge of my mom's property (used to be my paternal grandparents house). Can I come eat at your house??

I'm so glad DH knew to go get you. Did he see you fall?

 

[NH Homesteader]

So did your son suffer the consequences of staying up too late?

Mm apple season. Sounds delicious! I have a bunch of trees on the property but have no idea what to do with the apples because they're so darn sour. So I feed them to the pig, and the deer love to help themselves too!

 

[tortoise]

I'm so glad DH knew to go get you. Did he see you fall?

No, I didn't fall this time, I noticed in time to lie down on my own. I think he must have already been getting the car to get the veggies because he was there so fast. But I'll pretend he was just being my hero.

So did your son suffer the consequences of staying up too late?

Annoyingly, no. Two late nights in a row and he seems to be fine. Behaved himself yesterday after school, thankfully.

Any apple recipe that uses sugar will be fine for sour apples! When in doubt, apple crisp and applesauce!

 

[tortoise]

Semi-annual farm auction today. Nothing worth staying fo this year. t least not in >80 degrees, humid, and sunny, with a tantrumming 2 year old.

I stayed indoors with a/c most the day, but in the evening i felt better and DS10 and I started digging and moving peony. the previous owner had a satellite dish pole in the middle of the yard and planted peonies around it. It's a pain to mow around and i'd been planning to move them for years. We got half of them moved - split into 5 clumps.

DS10 cut tomatoes for 2 pots of sauce. I need to run them through the food mill tonight and then I'll cook them down all day tomorrow. I may try cooking them down in my crockpots or water bath canner because I need to make applesauce and get more batches of tomatoes going. I'm running out of big containers! I'm just trying to stay ahead of the fruit flies!

Not much farm and garden news. Tomatoes are coming. Pumpkins and squashes look good. Chickens are very slow growing out. This year's freezer sheep are fattening up, and I'm starting to feed ewes tiny treat/grain rations daily to get their rumens ready for winter grain feeding. Hah, they're not even bred yet, I just like to hand feed them and this year's ewe lambs are flighty and scared of me still. I'm not too worried, they'll come 'round after their first lambing.

I'm starting some projects for the county fair next year. I love competition. No, I love winning. This past fair I looked for divisions I have skills in with few entries - and especially low-quality entries. Miniature / fairy gardens was the most obvious one. My sister and i are playing around with miniature garden and bonsai now. I don't have high hopes for my baby bonsai, but i'm enjoying the learning experience. I started a fairy garden in a pot too.

If the fairy garden doesn't do well, my other possible entry is Christmas cactus. Last fair there were two entries. One was awful and the other looked like it was purchased from a store recently. I went home and repotted, staked/trained, and pruned my Christmas cactus. It may be a couple years before it's blue-ribbon quality, but it's shaping up nicely. I can't enter both the christmas cactus and fairy garden in the same year under current rules, so we will see....

There were not many bread entries last year, so I will be perfecting my homemade breads over winter too. Competition keeps me busy. I need that - especially in winter.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Ummmmm, if you need a totally impartial opinion on your breads feel free to send some to me. I would be so happy to be a tester!!

 

[sumi]

Those competitions sound nice and a good way to kill some time over winter. Not that it sounds like you're going to be bored any time soon!

 

[tortoise]

haha! @sumi ! no boredom here! We are having neighbor family over for supper tomorrow. Their son is a bit younger than my son, but they are true peers. it's amazing!

I have been trying to get my cooking projects done so I can cook supper tomorrow! I made a fantastic zucchini sauce (or soup maybe) but it took 24 hours to cook down. I had 3 stockpots worth of tomatoes cooked down into sauce and holding on a simmer all day today waiting to be canned. I had a batch of pea soup base to prep and freeze too. I am tired! But i opened my big mouth and said I'd make a pie for supper. It's a cold pie of course and has to be made tonight. DH thought I was neurotically prepping a fancy meal for tomorrow. Hah! nope! just trying to get those food projects done! still have a pot of applesauce to can tomorrow. I'm soooo tempted to freeze it just to get it out of my fridge as easily as possible. (I'd regret that later though)

Precooking done and pie in the oven. I neglected to note the cooking time is 95 minutes. Late night for me!

 

[sumi]

Goodness, no… No boredom by you! It sounds like you are enjoying spending time in the kitchen with your projects? I wish I had your enthusiasm for it, I really do. Here cooking dinner is a chore at the moment I need to borrow some inspiration from you and get going once I have some garden produce next year.