Ordinary Time

I don't know about you, but the past couple of days have felt so heavy for so many reasons, that I think we need something a little frivolous. So here are some terribly amusing (I think) chicken photos that K. took yesterday. 

The first item is canning. Last weekend I went to my favorite farm stand to get some sweet corn for Labor Day. My choice was to get two dozen ears (which is what I went for) or a bag of over five dozen ears and not quite half the price per ear. Guess which I picked. It was a lot of corn. So everyone are their fill, but we still had quite a bit left over.  This was not all of it. That evening, my first plan was to find a spot in one of the refrigerators to keep it (it was all blanched) until I could tackle it later in the week. Not surprisingly, it didn't fit in any refrigerator. So I. and I found ourselves cutting corn off the cob on Monday evening. I ended up with 18 cups of really good frozen sweet corn.  But wait, there's more! Eight cups more to be exact. This I set aside to make corn relish with. This is what I did today because I was worried about it going bad before I could get to it. I'm happy to report that all six pints of corn relish sealed. Items still on my can...

There has not been much to share this week. I've done exciting things such as clean the kitchen (multiple times), comb snarls out of several horses' manes, laundry, and repeatedly drive back and forth to the library. At least it feels as though I repeatedly drive back and forth since I'm currently in a go every day phase at the moment. None of it warrants a blog post.  Today's big event was some of the horses getting their annual teeth floating and vaccines and the sheep all getting their yearly vaccines. I did get this cute picture of Clark while he was waiting for the others to be done.  I also spent quite a bit of time sewing because that has become my go-to avoidance activity this week. I sew while I watch The Great British Sewing Bee and it does a lovely job of blocking out current events for that moment of time.  Plus, I'll end up with a jacket. Eventually. Sewing with handwoven fabric is a wee bit slower than using commercial cloth because there are some extr...

When it rains heavily, the pony stall tends to get filled with water which means the ponies need to move into the barn aisle for a few days while it dries out. They don't like it; I don't like bailing water out of the stall; no one is happy. J. decided that perhaps if there was a gutter along that side of the barn, the water could be drained away and the pony stall wouldn't flood. So today he added a gutter.  You can't even really see it, can you? What I love is that he put it on so that it blends with the light panel and makes it virtually invisible.  The downspout still needs an extension at the bottom to move the water away from the barn.  This is a better view where you can better see the gutter. So that was the barn, then it was time to move onto sheep. Actually that should be a sheep, singular. Clark is the only sheep with horns and because of the way they curve, we have to keep an eye on them, otherwise they would grow into his skull. As you might imagine, this i...

First the clarification. I hope no one was concerned for me yesterday due to my post . That wasn't my intent. I've known the end of homeschooling was coming for the past sixteen years. Because I knew it was coming, I have been actively working to fill my life with interests outside of active parenting (I'll always be a parent, even if my grown children) and homeschooling. I can appreciate the fantastic times we've had (and have yet to have), but I can also be appreciative of having a bit more disposable time. There is a reason my farm and business is Bittersweet. Most things in life are both at the same time. Now the advertisement. Feel free to pass this along to whomever you think might find it useful.  The start of a new school year can be a time of big transitions, especially if you are sending a child off to college. Transitions can be challenging. With this in mind, I'm offering a special package of book three sessions but only pay for two for parents who have ...

I'm sitting here listening to the second round of storms that are passing through, and we might possibly have a third round coming. We desperately needed the rain, so my only complaint is that it could rain a bit longer. J. happened to be walking Kenzie in the forest preserve behind our house when the first round rolled in and got some videos. There are three videos with the storm growing in each one.  He and Kenzie made it back just as the rain was beginning to fall. This next video is from our back porch. Some people were excited and went out in the rain. (Not during the lightening part of the storm, by the way, for my safety conscious readers.) And after the storm, the second round at least. 

Life has been pretty calm around here. I'm not complaining, but it does make it a little challenging to find things to write about. Drama makes for a better story. Next week things will changed a bit as we head into a different schedule. I think everyone will be relieved by this as time has seemed to be hanging heavy for more than a few. (Not me, I should add. Having nothing on the calendar fills me with glee and I am more than capable of filling that time.)  Thus, this may be the last photo based post for a while because the more people do things, the more there is to write about. We'll be back to my 1000+ word posts before you know it.  In lieu of so many words, here are a few photos from this morning in the barn. First, a sparrow egg that I found on the ground.  They are teeny tiny eggs. And the side where the hatchling emerged. I just hope this next round of babies managed to stay in their nests. And next is just a sun-bathing rooster. Note the outstretched leg. ...

The flies have been bad this month due to our rotten hot weather. I don't think Major really likes his fly mask and is firmly aligned with me in wishing the temperature would drop about thirty degrees.

I read an article the other day about undirected attention . (I linked to it in case you want to read it.) Essentially, due to being constantly connected to our phones, our brains get no rest. If we have to wait for a few minutes for something, we are likely to pull out our phones and start scrolling. (Yes, I'm as guilty as anyone. It's all rather insidious.) Instead of having pockets in our day when our brain is free to wander and rest with no demands being placed on it, we fill those moments with... well, whatever happens to catch our notice on our phones. If your feeds look anything like mine, not only are we not giving our brains a break, but at the same time we're causing huge releases of cortisol into our systems due to the nature of current events. This makes it even worse than just not having a break.  I think I found this particular interesting because over the past few months, I have been listening to very little as I clean the barn each morning. It kind of felt a...

This morning I finally finished bagging up the last of the frozen blueberries. As I was working on it, I realized I thought U-pick places such as the one J. went to with the masses was a good deal, but I had never actually done the math. And to clarify, they picked at a place where you just pick the fruit. There are no activities or petting zoo or concessions. The commercialized places are rarely a good deal , plus I find them tedious and annoying. But as usual, I digress. All this to say, I actually did the math when the blueberries were back in the freezer.  The total amount of blueberries frozen was 44 cups. We baked with and ate at least six cups, plus J. and everyone baked and ate probably another six cups. I'm going with 56 cups of blueberries total, but that is probably a little low. I did some math and learned that we paid $1.25/cup of blueberries. So that seemed like a good deal, but I wanted to be sure, so I looked online at frozen blueberry prices. Our local chain grocer...

This afternoon I decided that I needed to do something about the sweet basil. The plants look great and they're huge, but just growing the plants is not why basil is in the garden. Pesto is the reason we have basil in the garden. Step one was heading out and collecting some.  I guess it's more than some.  That bowl it's all in is one of my largest bowls. It's at least 12 inches across. It's not a small bowl. So far I have washed it, pulled off the leaves, and dried them. They're now in the refrigerator waiting for tomorrow when I shall make a lot of pesto. I don't know how many cups of basil leaves I have, probably more than twelve. It's going to be a lot of pesto. (I'm not complaining, by the way.)

The perpetual question of, "Why did the chicken cross the road?" baffles me a bit these days. Living with more farm yard-y types of animals is illuminating sometimes. Let's take ducks, for instance. Everyone makes jokes about having their ducks in a row (or not) as if this is some stellar achievement. I hate to break it to you, but having your ducks in a row is a very low bar. Ducks walk in a row. They just do. I think it would be far more difficult to get them to not walk in a row, though short of perpetually walking through their row, I'm sure how you'd do it. Aim higher, folks! Now, if you got your chickens to walk in a row, that would be impressive.  Chickens do not walk in a row. They will sometimes run together as a clump, but far more often, they just wander about looking for bugs and thinking their little chicken thoughts. I often think they must day dream, because sometimes they just stand there, not moving. This happens most often when standing in the mi...

Months ago, a friend had shared a photo from the book, Still: the art of noticing by Mary Jo Hoffman. I was intrigued, so immediately put it on hold. I finally arrived recently and I have been enjoying looking through. The photographs are stunning.  One thing I've found interesting, though, is that in one section, she has decided the year into two week spans. I think this is genius. First, because I think we humans have difficulty with moving through larger slabs of time. Currently, for instance, I'm feeling as though summer is endless and I have been fantasizing about twenty degree weather. (True story.) But the idea of breaking summer up into smaller bits feels more manageable. For instance, the author call the period between July 17 and August 7 as the "Time of Indolence". This seems about right to me, especially with another heat wave heading out way. When it is unbearably hit, indolence is about all one can manage. But then, on August 8, comes the "Time of R...

The pond plants that W. gave us are thriving and a side benefit is that the frogs love it. My new past time when I walk by it is to see how many frogs I can find. They love to hang out and sit on the pond plants or float in the water with just their eyes and noses showing. I think it's cute.  Can you find out little froggy friends?

This may be heavily animal themed. Let's talk about whippoorwills. It's a bird previous to last weekend that I had only read about. I imagined that the little whippoorwill song that they sang was sweet and charming. Well, it seems I was mistaken. Their song is the bird equivalent of someone typing in all caps. Instead of whippoorwill , whippoorwill , it's actually WHIPPOORWILL!! WHIPPOORWILL!! at the bright and early hour of 4:30 am.  G. is doing a fantastic job with the new lambs. This one is Caspian. Fred wanted his picture taken, too. It turns out that sheep love mulberry leaves. Fred and Clark have both become very good at balancing on their hind legs to reach them.  And some lamb pictures, because they're cute. The chicks are getting bigger and their feet are getting feathery-er. There is a huge squash plant growing in the sheep pen. I didn't plant it. The seed must have been dropped or buried by some passing animal. It is the healthiest squash plant that we...

There are many nice things about summer, though extreme heat is not one of them. The other thing I have very mixed feelings about are baby birds. They are sweet when you hear them peeping and can see their little heads stick up over the side of the nest. If only they would stay in their nests.  We have a lot of sparrow nests in our barn. Here are a few of them. There are many more nests than these as well. What these pictures don't convey is high high up in the air these nests are.  These pictures help give perspective. They are really up there.  Inevitably in late spring and early summer, I will find the occasional little nestling on the ground. More often than not they don't survive the fall and this is sad. Sometimes they do and we (J.) end up on a tall extension ladder to put the baby bird back in its nest. I have no idea if any of these renested birds survive, but it makes us feel better.  Then summer comes and the little birds grow feathers. It is more distress...