Catching Up Post #1: July

I never made a conscious decision to abandon my blog; life and new priorities got in the way. I don't want to leave this space altogether, as I do enjoy coming here to look back over the years.  But as time has passed, I no longer write with a mind to "followers." I'm writing for me, so I'm glad if you're here, but you may find it a bit dull.  I refer you to more interesting blogs, say Small Things, or Wooly Moss Roots.

Really there is little to report.  The activity that keeps me so busy is not very interesting.  Math with almost all the kids.  Making butter, yogurt, granola, kombucha, wine, dinner, ice cream.  Writing (not blogging).  Laundry.  Laundry.  Laundry.

I can't possibly chronicle the past couple of months in a few words (I'm far too loquacious for that), so I'll just post some pictures, adding that I haven't even been very good about doing that these days.  I really need a lens with a wide-angle-to-zoom capability, as my 50mm is great for portraits, but a bit lacking when I want an indoor wide angle.  I have to back up practically out of the county to get everyone into the shot.

Without further ado, I give you bits of July:

Among the things of July that are not noted in the photos above, our heifer turned one on the fifth of July.  Lola is absolutely lovely and we hope to have her bred this fall or early winter.  Her mama, Fiona, is milked twice daily, which--since we have no hog to raise right now--provides us with superabundant milk.  We go though about a gallon a day in milk and yogurt, but I've had the kids skim the cream from gallons and pour it out on the grass, which is criminal in my eyes.  I need to start making cheese, but I don't know how I'll find the time!

Ironically, this is Una's first week going dairy-free.  A recent spell of near-constant head and stomach pain, plus a cough, had me suspecting a dairy allergy.  Since Sunday we've eliminated all dairy, and not only are the headache and stomach pain gone, she seems to be sleeping better and have less anxiety during the day.  I don't know if we'll try dairy again in a week or so to see if her problems are in fact due to an allergy, but it looks pretty hopeful.  I'm beginning to wonder now if all her fibromyalgia pain was actually an undiagnosed allergy.

As you can see in the last photo, my baby had a birthday and turned six!  Since I began this blog when Dominic was a toddler, she is the only one who's life is chronicled here from conception to now.  She's a bright little spitfire who will no doubt cause me a lot of gray hair due to her willfulness!  I'm tempted to refer to her as "sir".  But she's also a very loving kid with a healthy conscience, and she's usually eager to please.

Status on the new house?  Well, we're still not in it.  The wood flooring is down (still needs staining and finishing) and the stairs are in, as you can see.  But with Bret doing the work himself, it's not happening fast...

It's getting warm outside...

Escape from the kitchen...

We always dreamed of having a cow that could really produce some milk.  All the cows we have milked previously averaged about a gallon a day (milking once a day) after the initial freshening.  We would hear of these Jerseys producing 3-5 gallons a day and wonder why our cows never reached such amounts.  Well, Fiona has become one of these mythical cows, and is giving us 2-3 gallons a day with one milking and--and--feeding her calf Lola as well.  This is wonderful for us, but without a pig to drink up the excess, I am constantly working to make use of as much of it as I can.  My sister takes a couple of gallons a week, and I clabber some for the chickens, but I'm making a gallon of yogurt a week, queso blanco twice a week, a half gallon of pudding once a week, ice cream, chocolate milk and smoothies.  I skim most of the cream from the gallons for butter and make that, too, as often as I am able.  Am ordering citric acid and mesophilic starter to start making mozzarella and hard cheeses soon.  I am the Dairy Queen...

Top photo:  the kitchen in a typical state of crazy.  The makings of Best Blueberry Birthday Pancakes for Dominic.  He turned 8 yesterday, although we are putting off the celebration proper until Saturday.  There is also the stuff for making the cheese, cream ready for churning, and the rice and lentils out to remind me to fix up a pot of my lentil and rice "beef-filler".

Second photo, at the end of 5 hours.  In the peanut butter container is 4.5 lbs. of chocolate pudding mix (I had two quarts of pudding in the fridge); there's a couple of pounds of the lentil-rice mix, which I keep in the freezer; 1.25 lbs of butter and 10 oz. of queso blanco.  There's also a bag of leftover pancakes from the bazillion that I cooked up, and 3 quarts of whey, left from the bit of cheese.  I use it for cooking with, or, more popularly, for whey lemonade.

School continues, as we school year-round and take our days off as needed.  Una and Sebastian have been taking Mondays and Fridays off from school to help paint at the new house.  Yes, we are painting, which means we only need doors, floors, trim, electrical fixtures and the whole kitchen before it is done--or at least ready to move into.  Certain things, finishing touches, will have to wait until we are already in.  Things like bookcases and crown molding.  I'm praying for money in the budget for a well, as I hate the thought of paying for city water with what we do here on laundry and showers, not to mention the animals and garden we have planned...

Well--just thought I would drop by to let everyone know that I've not completely dropped off the face of the earth.  Oh, and Annita, I know that Gemma's half-naked in the photos again.  Even with the pretty T-shirts you sent her, she still is constantly peeling them off and leaving them lying about...!

Newsy bits...

I hope everyone had a brilliant Independence Day!  We had some unusually temperate weather and after getting together with my sister's family for an impromptu cookout, we went to a fireworks display in Gallatin this year.  I have seen a lot of fireworks in my life, and more elaborate displays than this one, but never from right beneath the fireworks.  It was awesome, and I was every bit as excited as my kids and my niece and nephews.

Sunday morning we awoke to a new resident here on the farm: a Jersey heifer we've named Lola.  She's the prettiest little thing, and she and Fiona, her mama, are doing well.  Fiona is sporting an enormous udder, and we are finally done with purchasing milk from a Mennonite neighbor, which ought to save us a lot of money.  Our other cow, Nuala, is also expecting, but when she's due is anyone's guess since she ran with our neighbor's herd for 3 months.  We were having difficulty getting her bred, so we weren't particular about whether the bulls were Jerseys or not, so we are rather hoping for a bull calf from her, since it'll be half Angus.  A big surprise is that our ancient (well, 8 years or so) goat, Ruthie Weedeater, seems to be bagging up!  Apparently the buck from our neighbor's escaped herd, who spent a few days in our sights, managed to make good friends with her during his visit.  I can't wait...the last baby goat we had here was Ruthie herself.

Also on Sunday, Adrian served at Mass as cross-bearer for the first time at the Chapel of Divine Mercy.  He did a great job and was very recollected during Mass.  Gabriel was up there too as an acolyte, so it was a banner day.

Drywall is up and finished, and Bret has begun priming the walls...hoping to be in there by Thanksgiving, but as I told the kids, "We'll get there when we get there."

This week we are getting ready for Gemma's birthday.  It is on Monday, but we will likely celebrate it on Saturday.  There's a slew of birthdays coming up this and next month, and really it's non-stop all the way from here until Christmas, so thinking about gifts and what we can make this year is already on the agenda.  It makes me feel a bit ill, really... holidays have become nerve wracking for me since I seem to have lost my organizational skills somewhere along the way.

Anyway, that's all the news there is to tell right now.  Hope you're having a great summer!

Just a bit more summer...

Watch out...this is a photo-dump post:

This summer was a bummer.  The weather really never got hot enough for long enough to warm the creek around here, and the kids never got to go swimming.  Well, because of poor planning on our part, we have both milk cows out to be bred, the result of which is no cows to milk.  What this means in negative terms is, we have to buy milk.  What this means in positive terms is freedom!  As in, we don't have to be home at 4 to milk the cow.  Bret and I struck upon the same idea at the same time, and decided it was the time to get away for a couple of overnights.  First choice: the beach, as none of my kids have seen one but for Una, who was under two at the time.

Having an old friend--one's best friend from high school, in fact--living on the Gulf of Mexico--is a very good thing.  I asked if he would look into cheap hotel suites (is there such a thing?) in his area, and he insisted it would be no imposition to have us stay with him--although he lives in a one bedroom apartment.  We took him at his word, and I was so proud of my kids...they really behaved very well for being in tight quarters for 3 nights.

They also behaved very well in the van, seeing as it was an 8 hour drive for us, not counting stops for food and bathroom breaks.

Logistics of such a trip for a family of eight can be daunting.  I remember Bret and I, B.C. (before children) going away for a weekend with a duffle bag.  Gone are those days...it was like a deployment to get out of here.

It was all worth it, though, first of all to see the person who was my best friend through the highs and lows of my teen years after nearly three decades.  Wow.  That was really something.  And then, watching the kids as they romped in the sand and surf for the first time was wonderful.  I spent the first 8 years of my life in NYC and the beach was always taken for granted. The first day at the beach was only cut short after Adrian nearly came too close to a jellyfish, and someone nearby on the shore spotted a hammerhead shark that came up too close for comfort.  The second day was drizzly and overcast, and the kids played in the surf until we heard thunder and made them get out.

My friend Robert's apartment complex has a pool, so the kids made use of that as well.

Thank you so much, Robert!