Wednesday, July 4, 2018

For the record - 15 stops...

Disclaimer: for most, this will be a very boring post. No photos. Only word pictures. And it's about doing errands. How exciting can that be?! But this is also my family journal/scrapbook and doing a 3-4 hour stint of errands with all three gals and 15 stops is something worth writing about. So here I am!

As mentioned previously, I'm working primarily from home until August. But we will need to run to town at least weekly for scraps for our pigs and egg/milk deliveries. As is typical for me, I like to make a trip to town "worth it." Yesterday's definitely was! Just as soon as Terah roused from her afternoon nap, we headed out (with the goal of getting to the bank before closing time). Here's a quick run down of our itinerary.

1. Free Little Library - Kali has been trying to read through a big stack of books that didn't get purged in the deep clean since she wanted to give them one more go through. She and Alida went through a bunch yesterday and there were 2 to drop off on our way out. I sure hope they are better quality than the one we pulled out the other day: Coco's Candy Shop. That could be the topic of another blog post sometime. The note to parents in the front touts it as a "unique experience in Christian education" and my is it ever. Disturbing, at best!

2. Milk Shed - First round of deliveries! Had to drop of our herd share payment for the month, as well as some ricotta and butter for herd share owners to enjoy (and hopefully tip the farmers that provide us with an abundance of great milk!). I also left a box with a plea for 1-4 cup plastic containers. I'm just about out!

3. Bank - a few small chicken-income checks to cash and Kali had her first blueberry picking check to deposit. Of course Alida and Terah were glad to get stickers and we went in the middle aisle of the drive through which was a new experience for Alida. She was fascinated with the shoot that delivered things back and forth.

4. EMU's Campus Herb Garden - a facebook plea for dill seed heads had yielded a few leads, including checking the herb garden by the dining hall. Of course I got permission to do so first! It was in disarray and there was a crop of dill there but not a very healthy looking one. That stop only yielded one sub-optimal seed head. Onward we went...

5. CJP - I needed to drop off jugs of milk for the person we got our guinea hogs from this spring and who we have been bringing "waste milk" in for weekly. I also had a smattering of other deliveries: eggs, milk, yogurt, and ricotta. I had a few other quick office things to attend to, but decided to not actually set up shop and do any work. Seeing as we were only 1/3 through our itinerary, I knew it was going to be a long haul.

6. BOG - just picking up the pig buckets for the week. With some consolidation, I got them down to
5. Remember, we have our smallish Toyota Matrix, the back seat is filled with three gals, and I don't have the trailer along. It was going to be a tight squeeze.

7. Friend's dill patch - now this dill patch was something else. My goodness, it was lovely! It puts our dill plants to shame. We have more than ever but it just seems our soil is not quite exactly what dill would like. Earlier in the day, I had gone up the hill to our neighbor's and gotten some gorgeous feathery dill, but her seed heads weren't ready for pickles. A bunch of these were and I felt like I had just won the lottery (but of course it was even better than that!). You could hardly tell I'd been there, there was so much!

8. Gray Jay Provisions - second pig scraps stop. It was probably a good thing that they only had 2 of the 4 containers of slop for us this week. Not sure where I would have put the other 2. We also delivered some mint and some mint starts.

9. Rocking R - in we went looking for 5 items: narrow mouth screw top lids, replacement sunglasses for the ones sat on in the car, solar salt, water filters, and two more turn buckles for garden gates. We successfully found lids and sunglasses all by ourselves! Then a very friendly Rocking R employee took pity on us and quickly and efficiently helped us find our other items. I love that store! As we were leaving, I wasn't sure the best order for the remainder of our stops. We were getting to the more fun ones for the girls, so I thought they might like to choose. Kali and Alida were both flexible without a strong opinion and Terah, following in her sisters' footsteps, and piped up, "I'm up for anything." What kids! They truly make errands fun! 

10. Library - Alida has been very eager to turn in her summer reading program and get additional slips for bonus hours of reading for various prize drawings. The girls each got their "prize pack" and then got some books to take home. Each girl picked out 5 and then I chose 5 DVD's that were on a rack near the front of the library that all looked interesting. Not sure we'll even watch them, but just in case...

11. FCFC - Alida was eager to use some of the coupons in the July/August coupon book. I needed to clear them out of citric acid again for cheesemaking. Alida also bought a few plums to share and Terah bought two bananas (one for her and one for Persimanon - our car sock puppet) and a little package of 3 mint honey chocolate patties (which she shared with her sisters). They each got a free fruit and we happily departed. I love how much they love sharing with each other!

12. Friend's to deliver eggs - One more egg delivery to make on this town run to a friend's tiny house. I had never seen it before and loved it immediately. It's not much bigger than our front room. Made me eager for our little retirement cabin in the woods!

13. Friend's to pick up window AC unit - so our small window AC unit that we have had most of our marriage finally conked on us a few weeks back. And you know how fast Jason and I make big decisions. And now it is in the low-mid 90's and muggy. Ceiling fans do wonders BUT it felt like the heat and humidity was starting to build up. A work colleague and friend was over the other day and mentioned how comfortable our house felt (I was feeling hot). I mentioned our AC woes and she offered a window unit that was just sitting in her basement. No arm twisting needed! It's up and running and I'm grateful. That buys us some time to make a longer term decision about what we want to help with dehumidification and some cooling in the summer. Jason's cooking up some ideas that would also land me a more appropriate "cheese cave" in the process.

14. Dairy Queen for cones - remember the aforementioned summer reading program prize packs? We cashed in the first of a stack of coupons. Two swirl ice cream cones for the older girls and vanilla for Terah. She was pretty excited and pretty sticky by the end. The ice cream didn't seem to thrill her, though, as much as the cone. So much so that partway home, before Kali could educate her thoroughly on ice cream cones, she took a large bite out of the side of the cone. That made it a tad more urgent to eat quickly on a 90+ degree day!

15. Mailbox - last stop and a worthwhile one. Terah's new Babybug had come the day before so I thought probably the older girls' magazines might be there. They were! So up the driveway we went, loaded to the gills, happy kiddos and a tired mama, and restocked on great new reading materials! 

The unloading took awhile and a shower helped me feel a bit refreshed before getting some food in us and watching the first half of our Babies movie before the fireworks show. Our day ended with multiple bangs! The Massanutten Resort's firework show was moved again to a location that gave us prime viewing right from our front window. After the grand finale, we called it a day!

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