Our New Herd

Its official...we are now part of Sunny Knoll Eco Farm's cowshare program! 

We picked up our first three gallons of milk today and had a BLAST out at the farm!  Sarah, the farmer, says the waitlist for her program is three times the level she has available, therefore we feel VERY fortunate to have gotten in when we did.  All her cows are A2 cleared, you can read information about them here:  http://sunnyknollecofarm.com/guernsey-cows/  or check out the book The Devil in the Milk by Keith Woodford (http://www.amazon.com/Devil-Milk-Illness-Health-Politics/dp/1603581022). 

I wanted three gallons of milk so I could make my own yogurt, butter, cheese, buttermilk...blah blah blah and then Sarah informed me that if I ever don't feel like performing those tasks, she will be my personal chef and I can pay her to do them!  LOL!  Its like she KNOWS me.  So on my lazy weeks I will pay a small fee for a gallon of our milk to be made into delicious cheese (ate a whole wedge of it on the way home from her house!) and yogurt.  Life is good.  Hardly any reason to go to a grocers at this point.

Below are some silly pictures from the farm.  Bruce loved it there playing with Valerie, Sarah's 3 year old daughter, and learning all about farm life.  He can't wait to go back next week.  My idol worship of Sarah made me incapable of intelligent conversation, gotta get over that!

Piglets, chickens, hogs, cows, turkeys...truly an amazing place. 

Rooster

The hogs (the picture of the piglets didn't come out, boo hoo)

Aris, my love

Ruthann sleeping

Ruthann and Buttercup

The Fruit Flies Made Me

I bought 25 pounds of Honey Crisp apples for $30...three days ago with the intention of canning up some homemade applesauce.  (http://www.mackintoshfruitfarm.com/index.html) But life and laziness got the best of me and I hadn't gotten around to it immediately.  Then the fruit flies appeared.  Not only did they pester me, the kids and my hubby but they were getting in to my sourdough starter and driving the cats crazy!  So finally, today, they forced me to start canning. 

So I weighted out 12 lbs of apples

Peeled, cored and cut em up

Boiled them until soft

Processed them in a food mill until relatively smooth (i love juicy bits of apple in my applesauce)

Heated them with a splash of lemon and a cup of sugar, not too much as Honey Crisps are so sour sweet already, it so not necessary to add much. 

Heated up the jars and lids and transferred the applesauce in several messy globs to them.  Lidded and banded em and put em in the water bath canner to seal. 

And this is the result:  Four f'ing quarts.  That won't even last us a month!  I do have another 12 lbs to send through the process tomorrow (one more night with those damn fruit flies!) but still it'll only be 8 quarts which won't last us 2 months!  I wouldn't be complaining because I love to can, but its the fruit flies that made me do it!  My consolation is that LOTS of fruit flies were harmed during this process, lots.

Now off to do the dishes and rest up to do it all over again tomorrow.  Canning is hard work.

Birthdays, Bunnies, Cod Liver Oil....Oh My

My little Brucie isn't so little anymore...On September 8th he turned 9!  We celebrated as a family, skipped homeschool and played video games and ate cupcakes.

Bruce and Addie on the big day

We spent Saturday September 10th with Grandma and Grandpa B at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds in WV at a rabbit show.  The kids were so excited to see them and the bunnies.  Addie insisted we needed to take one of the homeless bunnies home...I said we would need to talk to Daddy about that one!

Grandma B and Addie

Bruce and "his" rabbit

Addie wouldn't leave Grandma B's side

Eathing Cheesburgers like men! Bruce and Grandpa B

Bunny Love

My little friend

Ever heard of Weston A Price?  In our house, we follow his dietary recommendations (and love the book Nourishing Traditions).  The "must take" supplement of the WAPF is Fermented Cod Liver and Butter Oil.  So I finally went to Green Pastures (http://www.greenpasture.org/public/Home/index.cfm) And ordered us some, in chocolate.  It is NOT a tasty supplement and the only way i've found to choke it down is by quickly putting it on my tongue and taking a huge swig of water.  Even then the fish after taste is atrocious!  I just hope the health benefits are worth the gag every morning. 

For more information about Weston A Price Foundation and who they are / what they do go to http://www.westonaprice.org/

Ever wonder..

What 10 gallons of homemade laundry soap looks like?  Probably not, but here's a photo anyway.

The half gallons go on and on...best part:  it cost me $2 to make

Here's a photo of my new coffee pot...Thank you Mrs. Scott for telling me about these manual drip makers...they truly do make the best coffee.  Happy Birthday to me!!

Using my new camera

Thats my dog Perry..my big buddy

Miss Attitude

The birthday boy!!  Hard to believe he's going to be 9

Writing a Book

The Adventures of Laverne and Shirley
by: Amber, Addie and Bruce Becker

There once were two fancy chickens living among many in a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere.

One of the chickens was white in color and cared little for the big world outside the farmhouse.  Her name was Laverne and she loved nothing more than to laze about in the sun all day long only stirring in the evening when she would eat cracked corn until it was time to perch on her bowl, tuck her beak under her wing and fall blissfully to sleep.

Now Laverne had a sister who was quite her opposite.  Her name was Shirley.  Shirley was black in color, loved Laverne more than anything but disliked life in the farmhouse very much.  All day long she would peck and complain to Laverne. 

"Look at me Laverne, I am far too fancy for this farmhouse with its woodchip floor and cruddy corn!  I belong in a big city, eating only the plumpest of worms and sleeping in a bed of golden straw!"

Then she would shake her bottom, scratch her feet on the woodchips, peck Laverne on the head and strut off to stare at the big city buildings far off in the distance.

--end part 1--

My dog's strange behavior

Although my dogs are admittedly a little strange in general (no more than you or I!)...my oldest golden, Perry, has been obsessed with me for the last month.  He will sit and stare at me for hours, or sit in a "guard" position with his back to me, looking out in the distance (of our living room, duh or our 0.08 acre backyard *rolls eyes*) scanning for some unknown danger.  Its a bit annoying to be quite honest.  I find myself telling him to "stop" "get" "enough" "go to your house" all the time!  I get frustrated whne hes under my feet or pushing the limits of what hes allowed to do, ie. go in the kitchen.  Then I feel guilty because he clearly thinks I need some sort of protection....or that i'm sick....or pregnant... 

Well, Re - "guard" - less (pun intended) I am certain his actions are motivated solely by love and loyalty and not by negative things like ownership (thats what you read when you google "why is my dog guarding me").

My dog, my legs...he was relentless this morning

What I've been reading

I keep my TBR (to be read) pile at a dozen or so books, at all times..this new kindle ereader on my phone makes it so darn easy for me to just one step click and read any book I see of interest at the moment I see it!  Darn technology.  The mix of books may seem odd, but if you know me at all the list makes perfect sense.  Maybe if I can get my act together I will go into more details on BookWorm Wednesday.

On my Kindle:

 

 Darkly Dreaming Dexter (Book One)

Jeff Lindsay

Drama/Horror

Like it.

  

Dearly Devoted Dexter (Book Two)

Jeff Lindsay

Drama/Horror

Like it.

 

Dexter in the Dark (Book Three)

Jeff Lindsay

Drama/Horror

Not done yet, but its Ok...a bit different than the others.  Certainly not my favorite Dexter book. 

Likeable though.

 

One of the Guys

Kristan Higgins

Romance

Love her books.  They are easy, sweet reads.  

 

King's Crossing

Timothy Keller

Biblical

Love...along with The Reason for God.  Timothy Keller has a wonderful way of explaining the Bible and its teachings.

Room

Emma Donaghue

Drama/Suspense

I downloaded the sample and read it and I'm torn between wanting to read on and to forget I ever read any at all.  Its not a cheerful book.  I tend to be sensitive to the suffering of children (and animals) and have a hard time shaking off those images once presented to me.  So I don't know about this one yet.  It certainly is well written and an interesting, compelling story.  For now I will stick with the very unreal, kind to children Dexter books :)

My paperback, non-fiction reads:

Homeschooling and Loving It! 

Rebecca Kochenderfer

I need all the encouragement I can get.  20 years ago the Harvard Phds I worked with told me homeschooling was the only way to go.  That little seed has festered in my mind since then.  I'm excited but also so very nervous about taking control of my children's education.  Rebecca sent me two copies of this text because there was a delay in shipping.  (I shared the second copy with a friend.)  She sent me the second book because she feared I had been inconvenienced, what on earth?  That simply doesn't happen now adays.  She is extremely passionate about homeschooling.  When I feel insecure about it, I just flip open her book to her introduction or to the many many exercises she gives throughout the text to refocus myself. 

 

 Managers of Their Homes

Steven and Teri Maxwell

Like I said I need all the support I can get.  I'm totally disorganized.  Always in response to crisis mode...I've heard wonderful things about the Maxwells over the years and am looking forward to using their scheduling techniques to have a successful homeschool year (and an organized home, please).



Rotten Weather

This is Addie's strawberry patch....which has hundreds of strawberries tucked beneath those leaves....but this horrible, moist weather is rotting them.

Happy Birthday Addie!

We celebrated her 6th birthday ON her birthday along with 50 friends! 

And these are the only images I have to remember it by

*sad face* 

I thought of everything but my camera!

Garden to Table

At this point I should be harvesting mega amounts of onions, beets and spinach from my garden...maybe even lots of strawberries too.  Lord knows the potential is there but this weather is causing early harvest issues for me.  Not enough sun to grow properly, constant moisture in the soil (regardless of the well drained raised beds) and rabbits prevented most of what i planted to come up in a timely manner. 

Today I decided I'd pull some of the spinach up for soup.  Disappointment in the amount of harvest aside, it was a glorious morning out there (in yet another overcast day) clipping leaves and rooting around onion and beet greens measuring maturity levels. 

Maybe I'm imagining it but this Spinach soup of mine - which I eat often throughout every week using Costco organic spinach ($3.99 for 16 oz!) - tasted so much better with my own homegrown, better than organic spinach :)

My Embassy Suites Stay

 

Really was anticlimatic...unless you consider I got food poisoning and am still exhausted...that said i walked away from the room sick but with the following toiletries in hand. Last time i visited Crabtree I looked for paraben and SLS free soaps and shampoos but couldn't find any. Guess I need to head on over to the outlets cuz these little bottles are half gone already!!

Church Gypsies

For Lord only knows how many reasons over the years we have floated from church to church..(and watched sermons online and TV!)...but I'm OH SO TIRED of being a church gypsy!  Our favorite church, and the one we still call our home church, is Mclean Bible.  But we also dearly love St. David's Episcopal church because of their incredible Reverend (Mary Kay). 

If only we could mesh Rev Brown's loving demeaner with MBCs bible study style!  That would be the perfect church (for us!)...

BookWorm Wednesday

I love to read.  Its absolutely my favorite thing to do in the evenings or while the kids are off at activities.  There isn't a single genre I enjoy most, although I probably read books on agriculture and sustainable living more than any other. 

Quite an odd pair of books pictured above, wouldn't you agree?  On the left is History Stories for Children by Dr. John Wayland (for Christian Liberty Press) and on the right is Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith. 

Dr. Wayland's book is part of my son Bruce's homeschool curriculum for 3rd grade (since the children are expected to read each book cover to cover...as their teacher, so am I).  I remember history in school as memorization of facts, dates, military action and the like.  This book takes a story telling approach to history.  Beginning during Biblical times and ending with President Ulysses S. Grant, many of the chapters begin with "Once..." or "One day..." or "Did you know..." and end with a brief vocabulary summary and questions for discussion. Gone are the paragraph after paragraph of dry facts that bored me to tears when I was a child!  And the style of this book is such that my children are also increasing their reading and vocabulary skills.  So far I'm thrilled with Christian Liberty Press' curriculum!

Well now...what to say about the alterna-history Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter!  To start its an incredibly easy read.  I see it as a good vacation book, reads fast and is not heavy on needing to think!  Its pretty interesting the way fictional vampires fit so nicely (and darkly) into the civil war.  The book is a good cross between fact and fiction and i'm curious to read a true Lincoln biography to figure out how much of non vampire info in the book is fact (remember I use to memorize history which means ultimately I forgot it all!). 

The horrifying back cover

mac n cheese thats whats for dinner!

Pioneer Woman Mac n Cheese

so good even Shirley loves it! look at that messy beak!

Testing out blogging from my fancy new phone!

Lets see if I can upload pictures...this is the TigerDen Demo team after they beat out Ryan Park, Woodbridge, and Sterling for the Demo Team Title on Saturday!

This site doesn't like to post video taken with my phone which is unfortunate because I have a 2 minute video of a ginormous worm digging beside my rhubarb plant that would captivate the world LOL!

Here are some garden photos..