It has felt recently that the best way to describe how life feels to me right now is that I go multiple times daily from being overjoyed to overwhelmed (sometimes even feeling both simultaneously!).
Let's begin with a snippet of a moment of being overjoyed. I guess in this case it is Terah who is the most overjoyed. We head out today (I know, I don't really have time to be putting up a blog post...) for a family reunion in WV, one that I've been on the planning committee of for the past three years. One of the events of the weekend is a talent show Saturday evening. Here's Jason practicing his juggling skills, though the real show is probably watching the baby enjoy it:
Swinging to being overwhelmed: that was how I felt when I got home from town recently to find my computer with an odd reboot error. Rebooting failed (multiple times) and so Jason dropped it off at EMU to get diagnosed. Bad news: complete hard drive failure, nothing retrievable (at least not without sending off the hard drive and probably not for less than a few hundred dollars). In the craziness of life lately, I had neglected to back up our pictures and videos for the past two months. That, in addition to our short and long term Tangly Woods project list, felt like a pretty big loss.
Jason suggested (as he tries to look at things positively) that maybe losing the project list is good - gives us a "fresh start" in some ways - maybe some things will never make it back on and that would be ok. In the end, maybe we'll feel that way. And maybe we'll feel grateful to have two months of our life narrowed down to the highlights on the blog. I'd say in the short term it added to me feeling rather disoriented for a good part of this week.
Much has happened since I last wrote. The older girls enjoyed an entire week with grandparents and cousins in WV. Terah and her parents survived the week without them, and even had some fun! But we were very happy to welcome them home...
I had hoped to get this blog post up last evening but I had that good tired feeling after a day of food processing and it was about 11 p.m. before we all (baby included) crashed. The day got more involved than expected since we aren't so good at turning down a corn gleaning opportunity - especially on a cooler summer day with breezes blowing! So the day involved making a cold bean salad for 70, canning a load of pickled beets, canning a load of dill pickles, starting a gallon of fermented dilly beans, and then freezing 15 quarts of corn. We squeezed in lots of nursing, diaper changes, four hours of office work time, and washing many dishes (my I was a lot of dishes on a daily basis!).
Ok, the baby is not so content in her doorway jumper as she would rather get into stuff! So we'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking! Enjoy:
Practicing "stand up" during one of our many recent blueberry gleaning stints.
And, well, being awfully cute in the patch, even if she was not overly helpful!
What a trio! They are something else - they are a bit part of the overjoyed part of life (the littlest one contributing more than the others to the overwhelmed part).
She has learned to life the seat of the composting toilet. Oh dear! And is quite interested in it (here only the door separates here from the object of her fascination...
The play kitchen at its old location. Now moved to the main kitchen so that Terah can "cook" while I attempt to keep mouths fed and bellies satisfied around here!
The cook that will soon far surpass her mother in her abilities! We continue to be spoiled weekly by her meals. This week she made a green bean saute with fresh tomatoes and basil, with a dill cucumber salad and bear sausage. The week prior we enjoyed beet chick pea patties with dill yogurt sauce and a cheesy leek bake.
Alida is pretty proud of her tomato plants, and with good reason. She may even be upon a new tomato variety - already has two setting aside for seed. I love seeing our girls getting into seed breeding!
And very occasionally I get to join the rest of the family in some gardening task - though tends to be still in the harvesting realm (here we are pulling onions - so glad to have some after their rough start).
Don't know what we would do without these helpers!
We promise to turn the garage over to Mom and Dad! Right now it is occupied by drying onion matter, seeds and garlic...Rental fees will be paid in produce. :)
Terah is pleased with this job - getting as dirty as possible and into as many things as possible while we aren't looking...
Here's the crew heading off to WV for the week. I was feeling sad as I took this - well happy for them but missing the girls and they hadn't even left yet!
In their absence, she enjoyed her first large tomato. Oh, what a fan - juicy, yummy AND messy!
This girl is serious about meals now! Anytime we are eating she wants to be part of it. And each meal time normally needs a major clean up and new outfit following!
This little one is a major daddy's girl right now. Cries for him if she can hear him, see him, or hear a noise (like the mower) that she associates with him. Pretty sweet - and has made my office stints lately a piece of cake as she really doesn't seem to miss me!
Kali and Alida took Terah to the fire ring the other evening for me to get a little burst of work done in the kitchen. I told them I didn't care if Terah got dirty. They took me seriously! We all needed showers when they returned!
Enjoying Kali's most recent meal! She really is spoiling us - and seems to be enjoying herself immensely in the process!
Terah loved the wagon rides to and from the corn patch yesterday. The girls and Jason went all together while I enjoyed a luxurious session of food processing all by myself!
The second ride back home was just a tad too much for her. This is how I found her when they got back. So sweet!
Ok, here's another one for you, Aunt Karen (and any other Terah-video fans out there). She's playing her new favorite game - which I think she may have first invented with Grandma and Grandpa Myers: "Stand up...Sit down..." The problem is that now she is getting so good balancing that she has to kind of make herself plop down half the time.
She is getting harder and harder to keep "out of trouble." I love having her in the kitchen with me but she seldom is content in her doorway jumper for more than a minute, in the backpack for more than about two minutes and her circle seat for more than five. She wants to be getting around, and she's getting fast at it too. She wants to open drawers and I'm not looking forward to the first finger pinch. So far I've been creative enough to delay the inevitable. Pictured here was how I got the onions chopped for our lambsquarter saute. And, yes, Jason and I enjoyed it even after she had trampled on it!
The rest of the pictures are from my short walk around with Terah last night. The older girls were at a sleepover and while, we miss them dearly when they are gone, I was happy for the space it opened up to hang out with just Terah (we even read some stories before bed!). Anyway, Terah is now awake and about to get into mischief so I'll let the pictures speak mostly for themselves!
Have the first crock of dill pickles fermenting - the excitement about cucumbers is palpable in this house!
I think this is one of Terah's favorite berries - good we have loads of them coming ripe...and, my what a mess they make!
Beauty in Nora's garden!
Mouths watering...
Hmmm, I think we'll have enough carrot seed!
Good to see chickens out roaming again - until the foxes realize we are risking it again!
Scything done...let the mulching commence! The corn is happy!
Anise hyssop - one of my favorite plants right now.
Ok, I'm really out of time! Let me end by saying how thrilled I am to watch our girls excitement as the growing season gets fully underway. Alida is checking her tomatoes several times a day!
Let's see if I'm coherent enough to share a few thoughts on recent days. I wish I could say that I was feeling rested. It is nice that a weekend long upgrade on two systems I use for my work may mean that Terah's afternoon nap time includes a short snooze for me too - so I'll type fast! I've been trying to do my office work in all her naps but have had to cut short my hours some days as I can't keep my eyes open and end up falling asleep while working on something (which has meant I jolt awake as my fingers get heavy and accidentally delete an email I still needed to do something with). So while I'm trying to slow down this "growing up too fast" thing happening around here, I will admit to being a tad impatient for the day (or night more like it) when I can sleep for 4 or 6 or, my I can't even imagine, 8 hours without disruption(s). I think my whole family will like me a lot better when that is happening on a regular basis and I'll like me more then too!
We are often singing the song, "have patience, have patience, don't be in such a hurry..." to Terah. It actually works (usually) to stop her crankiness long enough for us to finish snapping her up. I would not say it has instilled in her more patience, but has provided the necessary entertainment at times to distract her from her impatience. This gal does not want to be kept from doing things she wants to do, going places she wants to go, eating things she wants to eat. She has some serious drive! Oh, and, she really really likes to drive!
Yesterday around 3:30 p.m. we finally got on our way to spend the afternoon (well it was almost evening by the time we arrived) and evening with friends we have gotten to know through our kids playing soccer together. We had never been to their home, which is right up against the National Forest and along the river. It was Kali's month to plan a family night and she wanted to go swimming. It didn't end up including a lot of swimming as a storm came in as we were headed their way and while it cleared off and was a lovely evening, the water was a tad chilly. After a stint playing in the water, we enjoyed eating around an outdoor fire and the kids warmed up with some soccer fun. But I'm ahead of myself. On the way there we stopped at Rocking R to get grass and clover seed to sow where we had some excavation done this week. We also wanted Kali to look at the wheelbarrows as we thought for her birthday it was about time she had her own wheelbarrow. She seemed to agree that that was a nice idea (she's so amazing - really not being able to come up with anything she needs or wants for her birthday).
By the time we got there Alida had sacked out so I hung out in the car with Terah while Kali and Jason went in. I was very entertained. Terah is thrilled if she can get in the driver's seat. So while Alida is obsessed with being 10 years old it seems that Terah would like to skip to 16. I'm not sure Alida should have been quite so relaxed with her chauffeur. Here's our fearless driver (in the other video I got she even played around with shifting gears a bit). Silly baby!
Today when I took Terah out to put our updated car registration in the glove compartment, I could barely get her little hands unwrapped from the steering wheel. She's got quite the grip.
So I mentioned the excavation above. This job has been a long time in coming and kind of expanded some in recent months as we waited to rise to the top of the excavator's priority list. In the end, he dug a trench for some plumbing we need to have done, worked on the access path around the house and behind the swing set, helped fix some grading issues along the back of the in-law quarters and created a flat spot where we had dreamed of putting a pavilion but might just put a volleyball net for now! Terah was interested in the project but a little scared of the big noisy machine being operated by a strange man. It's rather pathetic but I've not even walked around to see the whole completed job. Tonight is the night! Jason and I have on the schedule to do a walk around once it cools off a bit. I will commit here to trying to celebrate all the successes around our place as we look things over, as much as I'll be adding to our project list!
The summer harvests are starting to ramp up. Most mornings now need to start with a walk around. This morning Alida and Terah joined me and we came in with a bowl of red raspberries, blackberries and a few cherry tomatoes, some more tea (as we are going through about 2 gallons daily right now), fresh oregano, and a handful of cucumbers. We looked at the sweet potatoes starting to create a carpet of vines in the garden, the flowers on the squashes, the green tomatoes, the corn rising above us, etc... We've been sharing leeks with anyone who wishes to take some home with them and we've also been dehydrating them and eating them. I made a cheesy leek casserole this week that we devoured - I'm sure our homemade butter and oregano mozzarella didn't harm it in the least!
Most of our midday meals right now are cold - it's just too warm for hot stuff. The girls and I have usually been in for a bit of the morning but Jason is often on his second shirt by lunch - the first being almost wring-out-able with sweat. I experimented again with using some of our fermented green tomatoes in hummus. The girls like it (including Terah), which is great. Jason and I aren't thrilled with it, as we both feel like green tomatoes are hard on our tummies it eaten in any significant quantity. I also experimented today with fresh, rather than dried, oregano in homemade mozzarella. Jason likes it a little less than dried. Kali likes it a little more. I like them both! Oh, and cucumbers! We had our first (of many) cucumber dill salads this week.
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We pulled our garlic this week so it is on the racks in the garage currently. We'll soon need to make room for the onions - which it appears will at least pull through and produce a crop after their very rough start. Also this week we enjoyed going wineberry picking with my parents (the evening before they headed back to their West Virginia home). It threatened to storm the whole time we were there, with thunder rumbling and Alida asking me constantly if we should head back to the car. We picked enough to get a few containers in the freezer and enjoy fresh with homemade vanilla pudding.
I think that about covers it for now. I'm going to try to savor a lot of time with our older girls this week as a week from today they head to WV for a week with grandparents and cousins. They will be missed! I've enjoyed playing some Phase 10 with them today, but it usually ends with Terah being pretty mad that we won't share our cards with her. She doesn't seem to get that there is anything disturbing about her folding and munching on them. We've already relinquished two of the instruction cards, but those have long since been destroyed...She is likely to be just as smart as her sisters were if we tried to fashion some kind of card substitute. There is really nothing like the real thing!
I also hope to read some more of Alida's library books to her this week. In just the last month or so Alida has become passionate about learning to read. It was as if some switch was flipped and she determined that it was time! She is flipping through the encyclopedias one by one and comes to me excited whenever she has figured out a word. She talks about words and their spellings and is getting more interested in writing too. I often find most of my cookbooks off the shelf after I've been tucked away with Terah for a nap. She enjoys "reading" those too. This week she wanted to make grapenuts and she found it in the index and then found the page. I love it! I'm constantly amazed watching our children seek out learning because they want to so much they can't bear not to. I think Alida realizes how aspects of the world will open up to her when she learns to read and I'd say she's just on the cusp of it.
This has felt like a week of extremes and words fail me! But I'll try anyway, as lots has been welling up inside me as I think about all the beauty and tragedy that I've gotten wind of and experienced from my little corner of the world.
Yesterday we had the privilege of hosting a lovely baby shower for my sister-in-law, Emily. She and Jonas are expecting their first baby, a daughter, on Terah's first birthday (October 11th). The girls were so excited, helping to make signs for the doors and making little finger knitting "baby toys" for their new cousin. Kali also enjoyed the actual party, while Alida was a little overwhelmed by all the unfamiliar faces and was unraveling at the seams by the time most had departed. But it was nothing a trip to the blueberry patch couldn't cure!
As we anticipated celebrating a new little family member set to join us this fall, we were also grieving a family member leaving us abruptly and what felt like way too soon. Yesterday, in Canada, family gathered (some who had intended to come south for the baby shower) for Jason's cousin's funeral after she died earlier this week very unexpectedly. She and Jason were born the same month and year, so she was just shy of 40 years old and leaves behind a husband and young children, as well as many other family and friends who are grieving and still trying to absorb the shock of this sudden loss.
Obviously all of us feel some losses more acutely than others. That said, it not hard to get overwhelmed with both the grief and the loss, not to mention the outrage and fear, that many are experiencing in our country and world this week. By choice we do not have a T.V. in our home and do not get any newspapers. We seldom listen to the radio and get one magazine monthly (The Sun). Yet my hundreds of facebook friends across the globe give me a glimpse into their worlds and perspectives and just minutes of scrolling through my feed leaves me wanting to celebrate and scream, laugh and cry... I feel thrilled to see pictures of a new baby born this week after being eagerly anticipated by his parents and those of us who love them. I love hearing the adorable things my niece is saying as her vocabulary explodes and she gives us glimpses into her fresh perspective on the world. Bur right next to those posts are news from graduates of the program I work for whose communities are in turmoil and experiencing war. And we needn't even go that far...here in the U.S. it feels like our fear is reaching new heights and it seems like the response of resorting to violence is coming all too quickly and naturally for many.
How can I respond? How do I respond? Is there a right response? Is it different for everyone? Is it ok to choose not to watch the videos shared on facebook of the violence? Is that just another marker of my privilege? How do I talk with our daughters about our crazy and messed up, yet so incredibly beautiful world?
Thursday at one of our family meals together our pre-meal activity was to each share a hope for our day. Mine was a simple one: that we'd all get to go pick blueberries together again before the season ended. That evening we were all prepped and ready to fulfill my hope when a thunderstorm rolled in (this has been a rather frequent occurrence). As it cleared, a beautiful double rainbow appeared. We all went out to admire it and soon made our way down to the fire ring, which was full of water. No blueberry picking but we enjoyed a rare family play time in the fire ring - enjoying the freshness in the air after the storm, the rainbow in the sky, the lush green growth all around us, and the girls having a marvelous time. We all got wet, some of us dirtier than others.
Later when we were in getting cleaned up, I commented to Jason that it may sound strange but that time together outside felt like one of the best ways I could honor his cousin's life. I haven't been without frustration this week, or annoyance at once again not clocking in more than 2 hours of sleep at a time. But below that surfacy stuff, has been a deeper awareness of how precious this life I'm living is. I don't understand why the human experience is so varied - from ecstasy to misery. I want more than anything for my life to contribute towards more health and wholeness for all those that I come in contact with. And, for starters, I felt like this week that meant savoring the three beautiful girls in our family and trying to focus more on their growth and development and experience of the world, than the weeds and dust threatening to take over corners of our home and property...
I'll share one thing I savored and that was Terah enjoying a last sugar snap and snow pea from the garden. She knows when she has something that we are watching her with closely (choking is one of my worst mommy fears). She holds on tight and vocalizes her joy in obtaining such an item. In general she is enjoying big people food at meal times much more! She also likes to mush it up and then rub her eyes and nose and mouth This morning she went to new lengths getting fresh fig in her hair. She goes through an outfit per meal most days. But it's worth the enjoyment she gets from experimenting with new flavors and textures!
Another thing we savored this week will be harder to share with you since it is long gone: Kali continues to rise to new heights in her cooking abilities. And we are the beneficiaries of her growing culinary skills! This week's menu included: marinated venison steaks (in her delicious marinade concoction), roasted red beets, sweet potatoes and turnips in fresh garlic, sauteed beet greens, and yogurt cornbread. She harvested the beets from her garden, pulled the garlic, ground the cornmeal... This was a home grown and prepared meal, which we all thoroughly enjoyed!
Oh, and then there's chicks. More and more cute chicks! We keep losing some birds - another duck for Kali and several young chickens for Jason - due to this year's seemingly increased fox population. We were grateful for a great hatch on this last round and have a mama hen taking good care of these fuzz balls! They are probably happy to be with her and not around the little munchkin who would love nothing more than to get her hands on them. We gave her a chance to touch one before they went out! Jason is still collecting hatching eggs as he's got another hen gone broody (haven't discussed when we need to call it quits on hatching but neither of us tire quickly seeing a mama hen raise chicks - I do think we are done with the incubators for the year!).
Let's end with the crop that is currently looking like the most marked increase in production since last year. Our thornless blackberries look amazing and the first few are coming ripe - giving us each a taste every day or two. Kali has decided she does like blackberries after all!
Alida had a really hard time deciding last evening whether she wanted to see Goldie Bean before Jason buried her. I wanted to give her as much time as she needed but darkness was coming, and Terah's need for my complete attention was also about to set in. In the end she wanted to if we could all go down together. As we approached the coop she asked if Goldie Bean would be alive. It was interesting how the concept of Goldie Bean being dead forever was having trouble sinking in. For that reason, I think the process of her looking at her pet hen, petting her, and helping Jason bury her was probably helpful. There was no mistaking that she was not alive. I'm not going to mince words here: it was not easy to look at her and see clearly where the snake had tried to swallow her head first (unsuccessfully).
I felt, once again, amazed by my daughters. I was thinking a lot last evening about when Kali's pet bunny died, and the two of us reminisced about that: http://myers-benner.blogspot.com/2011/08/grief-learning-from-my-daughteragain.html. I am grateful that, as much as I hate it and want to protect my daughters from experiencing devastating loss, I get to be present to learn from them when they do. Alida chose a few of Goldie Bean's beautiful feathers and Jason clipped off her leg band for another memento. We took the pictures she wanted and a few tears were shed, but overall she seemed to be feeling ok. It's nice that we are having a great hatch inside so there is lots of new life to be enjoying while we feel the sadness of losing Goldie Bean. The reality is that Alida was not yet to the age where she had assumed daily care of her hen and in all honesty Kali had probably spent more time with her than Alida - though she was often encouraging Alida to join her. So in some ways it feels like the loss was more the idea of losing a pet forever and also the loss of the dream of watching her mothering baby chicks (as well as just the feelings associated with thinking of her actual death - ok, so maybe that is where I'm getting hung up in this whole thing!).
Let me end on a brighter note by sharing some big news from Terah! After thinking she might bypass crawling due to the thrill of pulling to standing and trying to walk, she decided to debut her new skills at Shalom this morning. We hadn't been to church for quite awhile and, even though we arrived right at her morning nap time, she was pretty interested in all the people, the music and the carpeted floor. We weren't there long before she set off for a toy. She had made one or two movements forward in the last few days but nothing that made me feel confident to write "crawling" and the date in her baby book. No doubt it is ready to be added now. She's got some heavy little legs to lug around but here she is doing it! And I should note that she then nursed heartily and fell asleep easily for a short nap during the second half of the service - had to check out and let her brain integrate all that new information and skill acquisition! We'll see how life changes around here in the coming days...
Well, I might as well start with the sad news that is dominating my emotional landscape right now! A few weeks back Alida noticed that her hen Goldie Bean was acting broodie. This was very exciting, and a few days of her hen sitting tight on fake eggs confirmed Alida's suspicions. So we set eggs under Goldie Bean and the anticipation of chicks began. By the second candling we were down to half the number of eggs - thin shelled and kept breaking. But when Jason and Alida went out after dark to candle the remaining eggs, they all looked good! We also had an incubator full of eggs set to hatch at the same time and so as eggs started pipping inside we wondered what was happening outside.
This morning Jason found out what was happening, and it was not at all what any of us were hoping for. He found Goldie Bean dead and the eggs gone. A snake had gotten in, likely going after the eggs, and when Goldie Bean likely tried to defend her nest, she was killed. This was not easy news to share with Alida. Nor was it easy news for any of us to swallow. I have a feeling "building snake proof brooder coops" will rise a bit higher up on our priority list before next hatching season. I definitely was feeling inclined towards a meltdown of my own, with an irrational desire to shout out to the universe how unfair it was: why, literally the day before Alida's hen was set to have baby chicks poking out from underneath her feathers, did this have to happen?
As I learned from watching Kali when she lost her bunny, Curious Hiddley, kids do this grief thing pretty well when we don't get in the way and just support them and provide comfort as we are able. Alida shed a lot of tears initially. Then she wanted me to read a book, which I did. Then she wanted to know if Goldie Bean would come back, which led to a conversation about us all coming from soil and returning to soil. Then Jason came back in (he had the baby outside so I could hold Alida) and we talked about pet hen replacement options, and Alida made it clear she didn't want a rooster, since they aren't as friendly. She shed some more tears on Jason's lap and then wanted another story. She was unable to decide if she wanted to see Goldie Bean before Jason buries her, so we have left that for the evening. Now, she is creaming me in National Parks Monopoly (though I haven't been present for any of the game as I'm in the bedroom with a sleeping baby in my arms). She keeps coming to give me updates on how many lodges she has and to show me her big stack of money, informing me of how poorly I'm doing.
We waited to share the news until after our friends left for their return to PA. It was a very short but sweet visit with my dear friend (from middle school to the present) and her three children. We filled about every minute possible with visiting, but still only managed to scratch the surface on catching up. We are dreaming of a longer visit together this fall... Last evening Terah was so sweet reaching for Erin and giving her little hugs before we went to bed. I should not have been surprised (I like her a lot too!), but Terah really hasn't gone to anyone regularly other than Jason, Kali and my mom. I've often noticed that it seems like our children can sense when we are comfortable with someone. Our girls all warmed up quickly, including Terah! The kids played soccer, tore around the blueberry patch while we picked some for them to take home, and in general entertained themselves while we exchanged as many words with each other as we could fit into the minutes we had! A long walk this morning was great, but just enabled us to start another half dozen or so conversations we didn't manage to finish before their departure time arrived. Long distance relationships are hard at this stage of life, so it is awfully nice to have a relationship with such deep roots and a level of comfort that enables us to pick back up where we left off the last time.
So this weekend was our time to host visitors from PA and last weekend we made the trek to PA to be with Jason's family - a special weekend centered around all being together and celebrating Dad's 70th birthday. I know the girls would say one of their highlights was two long stints in the pool - Kali would have stayed in all night if she had anyone wishing to linger with her. I was pretty impressed that she has slowly worked her way up to going under water. It's so neat to see her slowly challenging herself in areas that felt too hard or scary previously. She's on to plan our next family night and has chosen swimming. Another highlight was Grandpa giving a bunch of us a cart ride. It was exciting, even if it put Terah to sleep!
I really enjoyed the time a bunch of us spent out under the shade trees in the backyard just visiting and watching kids run around popping bubbles or playing at the swing set. It's such an unusual activity for me to just sit (with nothing that I need to do) and let Terah climb all over me while I visit. It was really lovely! It was a warm day but the shade and the breeze made it quite pleasant. The time we spent together singing before most began dispersing Sunday was also right up there on my list of enjoyable times. It was good to all be together!
Terah would definitely say that her highlight was NOT the car trip. Adding to the list of ways this kiddo is making her mark, and standing apart from her big sisters, is her dislike of being in the car. It's not that Alida or Kali loved it, but we never had much crying in the car. Terah is getting more entertainable (peek-a-boo is a favorite) but when she is tired and wants nothing more than to fall asleep stretched out, she is not very patient with the predicament she feels any of us could get her out of. It didn't help that the ride up included an hour plus of stand still or crawling traffic and several other traffic related delays. I was rather frazzled by the time we arrived, and felt so relieved when the return trip home was uneventful in comparison.
In the days preceding and following our trip, the girls and I made a number of treks to the blueberry patch next door. They are having a bumper crop year and the berries are amazing! We have invested a lot in blueberries for our freezer and it feels worth every penny. If nothing else, it feels like fabulous family entertainment - we don't have to get in the car, we get a little exercise walking there and back, a great nutritious snack is provided, there's a gorgeous view to enjoy and it is a family-friendly environment! What more could we ask for? Alida is great at helping to entertain Terah and feed her blueberry halves. Normally she lasts about as long as it takes us to get a bucketful, and then she is ready to either help pick (which would be disastrous for the bush) or have my undivided attention.
It's a little hard to believe July is already here. The peas are coming to a rapid end. The older girls and Jason pulled our candy and potato onions and the shallots yesterday. Garlic will be next and then our main onion crop following. I think there are some grain crops Jason will be harvesting here before too long, but I'm honestly not up to date on the status of everything outside. I can hardly keep up with getting three meals on the table daily and our family's dirty laundry accumulation - esp. as our littlest gal joins us at the table and needs a new outfit every meal. We'll possibly have a bit of a lull before our tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and green beans have us flooded with food preservation tasks. In the meantime, I'm making batches of pesto here and there, drying oregano, making lots of cheese and butter while the cows are on pasture and the milk is high in omega 3's, and cooking with the lasts of things from the previous year (I chopped up the remaining two winter squashes yesterday). We hope to try dehydrating leeks this year as we have a lot of them, but otherwise won't likely be doing a lot of experimenting. We are out of diced tomatoes, tomato juice, tomato paste and have one quart of salsa left. So let the tomatoes ripen and the chopping get underway as soon as possible! And may my creative juices be flowing in abundance to think of ways to keep our littlest entertained and happy while I attempt to put up food for the winter. I'm thinking putting her in her high chair with a large tomato might do the trick for at least a little while... Time will tell so stay tuned!
