The thermometer read over 70 degrees early this afternoon - feels more like the first day of spring or summer. We just returned from a trash walk to fulfill our Adopt-A-Highway commitment and to help beautify our road and were sweating in December (in t-shirts!). There is clearly someone who has a habit of picking up coffee at Waffle House and flinging their cup out the window and another (or the same) person who drinks very large bottles of beer and deposits the bottles all along our road. The heaviest find was a large bag of waterlogged trash that someone had decided to throw into the stream at the end of our driveway. We did not attempt to pull the deer carcass out which was there as well (our suspicion is that some of the hunters on Massanutten Mountain are sport hunters and for some reason that particular stream has become a dumping ground for the parts of the deer they don't want (sometimes the choicest cuts of meat are taken but in some cases the only thing retrieved are the antlers). Not only is this polluting but it seems so wasteful and disrespectful. So I can't say that my positive feelings towards humanity are bolstered by our trash walks, but it does feel good to make a contribution to cleaning up the place where we live. And we got to greet some neighbors along with way and came home with one Christmas gift of cinnamon jelly and roasted pecans.
Now I'm sitting in our bedroom while Alida finishes up her nap with the window open and the sound of the wind in the pine trees. The background noise for awhile around here will be construction noise, as this week's project on the home front is for Jason to finally finish up the trim on the window's we replaced last year. It's fun to have these days at home to look forward to - while we have some goals for the time it feels we can move at a more relaxed pace enjoying meals together and evenings of games and being together as a family. We'll be spending Christmas week together at home for the first time since Nora was with us and will welcome the Benner clan here to celebrate with us the weekend after Christmas.
The girls and I made our menus for the week yesterday with them each picking things they would like to eat. With the exception of Kali's first request, we have everything we need to make their favorite dishes (I love not needing to go grocery shopping!). Her first request was toasted cheese sandwiches, which she was easily diverted from when she learned we didn't have cheddar cheese - and it worked out perfectly that our friends had made toasted cheese last night for supper club so she got her wish afterall!
Tonight's meal will be my favorite - haystacks! The impetus for making a huge pot of chili was that we had noticed the very start of a little soft spot on the end of our rather long trombone squash. Thanks to Anna we got started growing these and had allowed one to remain on the vine as long as possible for seed. It just kept growing and growing and growing! And it has held up remarkably well. It was so fun to peel and chop up and the chili is about half squash!
It's hard to believe that it was just last weekend that we hiked to the lake with snow still on the ground! And we even got to enjoy watching a great blue heron enjoy the lake - an uncommon occurrence as we hardly ever see any birds on the lake. The other treat was eating persimmons off the tree by the lake (and picking a bunch to bring back home). Alida sacked out on the way there and then woke up as we got home. She asked if we were going to the lake! I feel kind of bad when we talk about what we are going to do before she falls asleep and then she misses it, but she didn't seem too bothered, especially when I talked about taking a picnic there once the weather warms.
Now it is time to do our monthly deworming of the goats so I better wrap this up. They will be thrilled since it means human contact and attention - and some oats and molasses. We got goats to experiment with raising goats to see how they fit us and our homestead and I'd say the experiment has been a success on my end of things - I don't want to raise goats! I think if I had nothing else to do, no other living things that depended on me for their physical and emotional well-being and I wanted to have goats by my side 24/7 they would be perfect! As it is, I have lots of other things I'd like to fill my days with, I have three people who I love dearly who I want to invest my time and energy into and I would rather not have the goats tagging along everywhere (though they were kind of cute hanging out with us this morning while we hung laundry). The reality is that these particular little guys seem very emotionally needy - they want to be with us! Recently when we've taken them for walks we try to go where they want to go - which means running as fast as we can to keep up with them. Where do they take us? Not to a honeysuckle patch or some luscious grass in the yard - to our porch and they just stare inside. The other day they took Jason to our side porch, then to the door on the deck and then around the back of the house to the garage door. Silly kids! Yesterday I tethered Oreo on something that wasn't strong enough and he got loose - no problem, because he just showed up on the side porch! In my good moments, I can enjoy having them around and watching Kali and Alida enjoy them. But I often feel a little overwhelmed by the thought of providing them a good home for the duration of their lives. I think they would be happier either with a lot more goats around or if they had people close by them all the time. As it is, every time we walk out the door they pipe up and that gets pretty old for me. They took a little trip to Waynesboro this past week when friends borrowed them to be part of a Nativity scene. :) Their stay away was extended due to bad weather and I realized how much more relaxed I felt walking outside and not hearing their bleating. I find it interesting how the noises from our chickens and ducks don't bother me in the least but the goats cry definitely gets me at a different spot. But for now it will be me that will have to adjust as there would be louder cries from a different kind of kid if we got rid of them at this point! And that other kid is chomping at the bit to get back outside so I better get on with the day and off this computer (as the littlest munchkin is also awake and clambering for attention)!
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