Saturday, August 13, 2016

We've got a walker!

While the older girls were on their date night last week with Aunt Emily (August 4 - a week shy of being 10 months old), Terah took her first step solo. Well, almost solo! She had a corn cob in each hand. I actually forgot to mention it in my last blog post - that had been a rather big day all around and my brain often feels on "detail overload" so it skipped my mind when writing. Since that time, she has gotten up to about 5 steps. But it seems she does best when she has something in both hands. While at the reunion in WV, she enjoyed practicing with Kali's hairbrush in one hand and Alida's in the other. I didn't get the camera out in time to get her best walking, but here's a step.



The reunion in WV went so fast, but was plenty long enough to be away from home. I wish I could have connected with lots more family members for longer, but between my committee responsibilities and keeping up with 3 gals I felt rather occupied (mostly with the littlest who wanted to practice her walking and her "getting-into-everything" skills, and was also a tad overstimulated). I was really grateful that the trip to and fro was very uneventful - Terah and Alida fell asleep very quickly both times. That has been Alida's pattern but not Terah's. That was a welcome thing since packing to go had me in quite a fix and packing to return home the same. So the peace and quiet of the ride was needed! It is an indication of how occupied I felt for those two days that I didn't take any pictures or videos other than the few in our cabin when Terah was practicing walking.

Now we are gearing up for a 13th birthday party tomorrow evening and sleepover into her actual 13th birthday on Monday. More on that to come, which is why I needed to catch up on other news before it's too old to be worth mentioning!  My work has been getting more intense but it really ramps up to high gear starting Tuesday with 3 days in town this week and probably 4-5 next week, as well as working in all of Terah's naps (except this one, obviously!). We will also go to the fair this week for our annual picnic, rides and animal viewing!

Those things are the exciting and out of the ordinary things, but we've also got the day to day. I'm still busy making ricotta cheese, butter, and mozzarella (from the milk we are getting for the pigs - we are happy to feed them whey and skim milk and get some good stuff out of it first). We have really enjoyed oregano mozzarella and this week I tried basil mozzarella which was a hit - sliced fresh on tomatoes! I made my own homemade cream cheese and made a cheesecake with that, homemade butter, homemade yogurt and homemade ricotta, as well as our eggs. It was good, but not amazing. And it leaked into my oven horribly. But it was fun to try!

Every other day is a "harvest day" at this point in the year and right now we are getting about a bucket of beans, tomatoes and cucumbers each picking. We also get a quart or so of blackberries and red raspberries, a handful of okra, and the trombone squash is starting to produce. We are nearing 60 quarts of pickles, plus several gallons fermented. We are starting in on dilly beans and fermenting some. I've got a crock of shallots, oregano, green peppers and cucumbers fermenting - needing to get creative due to our dill shortage. My fermenting set up pictured here is not real high tech - enjoying just laying things in a crock, pouring over a salt water brine and then weighing it down with a plate and something heavy from the root cellar. :) It works! And we love the end result!

Last week I canned a batch of pureed tomatoes to prepare for salsa-season commencing - which it officially did last night. Kali declared taste testing her favorite part of making salsa. It's so yummy fresh! We had enough to can a batch even after eating lots. It's all the way at the end of the row - the middle row of canned goods is from the last few weeks. It's awfully green with pickles right now but we'll be working on increasing the amount of red stuff there as I was completely out of diced tomatoes, tomato paste, and salsa. So I know we can do it - make salsa with a baby around - though it was definitely a family effort and I can't say that day ended with all of us in good spirits. It seems the evening hours just get away from us and before we know it is late, we've got a half dozen things started, and kids start breaking down. As it was last night, our neighbor also called to alert us that they have a bear around their place, so added to the evening chores was putting ammonia rags on coops.

I feel really glad for our tradition of having a monthly family night where we rotate who plans it. This was Alida's month and she picked going swimming (after we suggested that roller skating might be a better winter activity!). A friend in town graciously had offered that we could use her pool and they were out of town this week so we had the place to ourselves. We swung by the co-op for some birthday party supplies we needed (we aren't yet growing chocolate or graham cracker ingredients so s'more fixings had to be purchased), and grabbed some sour dough bread to go with our fresh homemade cheese, cucumbers, tomatoes, pesto, hummus, etc...

It was a very fun evening! Terah was a big fan of swimming, as were her sisters and mommy. Jason was as pleased as anything with the sun warmed brick ledge. I'd call it his "happy spot" for the evening. Kali has never taken swimming lessons but she is now doing pretty well getting around in the water and has slowly challenged herself to go under and this time she even swam a foot or two before sputtering to the surface. I'm proud of how she has taken steps as she has felt comfortable, and with each step I feel better about her being in the water. Alida was grateful for her alligator floaty. Terah enjoyed being in the water but also more of the usual - getting into everything possible - she liked the picnic down at her level without being strapped in her highchair! And I enjoyed it all: seeing the girls having a great time, the view (see below), the feel of the water, the delicious picnic with that good hungry feeling after swimming, and just having a relaxing time all together. We need those times!
 Well, I better keep moving through my list. It's definitely the month out of the year where I have a really hard time choosing what to do next. It doesn't help that I feel like I'm functioning with only a partially working brain. Terah came down with a cold (that is moving through the family), soon after the WV reunion. Last night was a tad better, but I still only spent about 10 minutes in bed and only clocked in a little over 2 hours at a time all night. Yes, that is an improvement on the nights prior to that. I can't say how eager I am for a stretch of sleep that leaves me feeling rested. I know it will come, I'll feel all nostalgic for this time with babies and little kids. But it doesn't necessarily make the exhaustion easier to handle in the moment.

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