Friday and Saturday

So my first week of work is behind us (it was definitely a cooperative family effort and all survived!) and below is an account of how I spent my days "off." It feels like the last two days are worth recounting as they were jam-packed with hard work and fun, and I was already having a hard time remembering all that happened yesterday when I sat down to start this post. We knew August would be full, and so far our expectation has not been disappointed.

Yesterday started with Alida and me attempting a walk but getting rained back in - thankfully, though, it did the trick of getting her that first, very important short nap of the day. She had a few more naps throughout the day either in the front pack or on our bed, while the action carried on around her. Kali joined in for some of the activity (like helping Jason did potatoes and working on the garden watering with both of us), but was also found with her nose in a book a good part of the day. Here is a list of the major activities I can recall from yesterday:

-Garden watering - a big task these days so we all chipped in yesterday to help Jason be freed to do some other garden tasks (and we ran our cistern dry with this watering so were super grateful for the rain this evening).

-Chopping and more chopping of veggies for pizza sauce - this happened in various times throughout the day but by days end there was a pureed and strained tomato sauce simmering on the stove and smelling mighty tasty!

-Making butter from this week's cream.

-Making a batch of pesto.

-Jason and I had fun working together to make about two batches of salsa from garden veggies.

-Cooking down the last beets from our garden (except the precious few being saved to plant for seed).

-Making potatoes to go with lunch that were just dug from the garden; also making a kale saute and yellow squash patties from fresh produce. We are eating so well these days!

-Laundry - broke down and used the drier since there is no good drying day in sight...

-Playing "Go Fish" with Kali

-Picking and cooking lambs quarter for rolls

Interspersed throughout the day was planning out the Saturday schedule and menus for Kali's bday weekend, feeding Alida often and changing diapers or taking her potty, and worrying about Curious Hiddley. It seems that our bunny is having bouts of not feeling good more and more often. We fear that maybe he is getting old in bunny years or for whatever reason not in very good health any more. He hasn't eaten for the past two days and has only gotten a few dropper fulls of juice that Jason has given him with a medicine dropper. He seems very uncomfortable and we hope he will perk up soon. There will be a lot of sadness in this home if the time is near for us to say goodbye to that little fellow!

We got to bed right about in the middle of the night and were up first thing and at it again.

Saturday started with another walk and then the food processing and baking began. I was so glad to have Jason around for the day helping or it would have been a very different day. And I'm so glad that food processing together is one of my favorite activities.

Today's projects included: baking green rolls (from yesterday's pureed lambs quarter), buttermilk bran bread (from the buttermilk from making butter), peanut butter cookies (because Kali's birthday chain told us to), red beet chocolate cupcakes for the upcoming birthday party (since everything has to be red, pink or green in the meal for the St. Palentine's Day festivities), canning the tomato juice from draining the salsa tomatoes, canning the pizza sauce that was a labor of love (over 15 quarts of fresh veggies cooked, blended, put through the Victorio strainer and cooked over night down to a delicious sauce amounting only to 9 pints), and the major project: APPLESAUCE - we will add 70 quarts to our root cellar (20 of that done a few days ago). Jason and I make a good team!

Though right now I'm getting the better end of the deal as I'm sitting here typing and cooling off under the fan while the last load of applesauce is in the canner and Jason is doing dishes. I love the picture below taken when the last of the applesauce was done - it was also after Alida had had a "playing with and pulling Daddy's hair" session.

And of course to end: a few notes on Alida's continued exploration of the world. She is enjoying joining us at the dinner table in a new way of late - trying out the high chair. She got to lick pureed beets off my finger the other day and has enjoyed trying the applesauce. But it seems that banana is probably the current favorite of the few things in her repertoire. She continues to enjoy singing and talking to me when she winds down for the night and I find those times to be some of the sweetest of my day - that and the morning smiles!