Ordinary Time

When J. goes to work he takes whichever children have classes that day with him. They go to class, do homework, roam the school until their father is done for the day and then they all come home. It's a great system with no extra driving needed. It's a great system that is until J. needs to be at a meeting off campus two hours away all day.  While there is a shuttle bus that goes between the end of the Metra line in our little town and the NIU campus in DeKalb, there is no additional transportation from NIU to the community college in a small town three miles further west from DeKalb. (For selfish reasons, I really think there should be a regular shuttle between NIU and the community college.)  This meant I found myself driving children too and from school today. It was a lot of driving especially since I added in a bunch of errands on each return trip... Getting gas, Costco, farm store, equine vet (to pick up prescriptions, and the library all told. The library was the last s...

We had been wanting to ride on the boat that L. works on all summer. Finally today we were free, L. was working, and the weather cooperative. It was more than cooperative, it was pretty much the perfect day to take a boat ride.  That's L. at the end of the gang plank. I didn't take any pictures while we were on the boat, but we spent some time walking around the park the boat leaves from, so you can still enjoy views of the Fox River.

It sounds so good to find some good deals on produce to can and freeze, the trouble is it's only a good deal if you actually do the canning and freezing. Which is what I did today. All day. All day standing in the kitchen chopping vegetables. It is worth it in the end, but I'm beat.  The totals for today?  7 pints of sweet pickle relish (canned) 6 cups of frozen green pepper strips 20 cups of frozen mixed color bell pepper strips 4 dehydrator trays of bell peppers (they're still dehydrating so I don't know how many cups) Two dinner's worth of frozen sliced okra (to be fried) 5 pounds of ground cornmeal - we had run out and I needed it for the okra so needed to grind more I still need to prep and freeze the extra lemongrass that I bought yesterday. Plus there are still cucumbers which I need to turn into bread and butter pickles. I'm also guessing there will be enough cucumbers to make a couple jars of dill pickles. I'm hoping I'll be done with it all by ...

Do these give you some clues? That's a half bushel of sweet peppers. Pickling cucumbers  If you guessed making and canning sweet pickle relish you'd be correct. I will probably also make bread and butter pickles because we go through them quickly and they're not something you can dobuy in the store. If I still have cucumbers left over, I'll probably make some dill pickles as well. They're actually the quickest of the pickles I make. And maybe I'll decide we need a lot more dill pickles, in which case I'll have to go buy more cucumbers.  The relish is not going to use up all those peppers, but the price was far too good to pass up. I'll slice/chop and freeze them in recipe sized amounts. Did you know you can do that? Freeze them as is then put them in recipes where they'll be cooked? The same goes for onions. Neither would be good to eat raw, but they're fine in things. Plus, it's super easy to just take pre-chopped peppers or onions out of yo...

We did indeed have apple fritters for breakfast.  G. made them with our own apples and the glaze has cider and bits of apple in it. They were delicious. It was very nice to come in from cleaning the barn in very wet weather and be able to enjoy a freshly made apple fritter. Teaching your children to cook pays off. 

The other day, while I was driving Y. to do the onboarding for her new job , we passed by a pond that often has birds of various sorts in it. It was a jackpot day. Y., who is always on the lookout for birds, noticed that there were four egrets. We paused to admire them and moved on. Coming home, I paused to see if they were still there. They were, but they had been joined by a blue heron. So I took a picture.  You can see them if you enlarge the picture, but I'll make it a little easier. Take time to notice the bits of wonder around you. K. is here for the night, so he got in some picture taking. Here are a few of them. And my favorite.

The boats L. works on go up and down the Fox River and there is a recorded narration of what the passengers are seeing. L. has now heard this commentary a lot. When we were wondering what we should do today, L. said she would like to go wander around the fen she passes in the river. This seemed like as good a plan as any, plus I am always up for visiting a new to us forest preserve. So those who were interested hopped in the car and we headed towards Person Creek Forest Preserve and fen.  A fen is like a bog , but with a lower pH. (I had to look it up.) It turned out to be a little rainy, but more sprinkling and not downpours.  I had never seen a plant like this so I looked it up. It is Clematis Virginia a; a vine in the ranunculus family. L. wasn't in it, but it was fun to get to see one of the boats she does work on pass by. The Fox River  Do you see that house through the trees? According to L., our resident expert on this section of the river, it was a stop on the Und...

This might be a bit braggy in terms of my children this week. Consider yourselves warned. But before the bragging, I want to give you a Vienna update. We have her insulin under control but her feet are still bothering her. The farrier thinks it's because the soles of her hooves are very thin so any amount of inflammation (from weather or whatever) is going to make her uncomfortable. She recommended getting Vienna boots to cushion the bottoms of her feet. You probably haven't priced horse boots, but let's just say they aren't inexpensive. But I want Vienna to be comfortable, so I purchased the most expensive set of footwear I have ever bought. The boots arrived today and I admit to holding my breath a little when I tried them on her to see if they fit. They did!  And here's a closer picture of them.  She wasn't sure at first, but within the first ten minutes of wearing them, she was moving more than I have seen her move in a long time. The boots need to be broken...

I thought that this year for National Dog Day I would share my and J.'s three dogs we've had over the years. (This won't include Aster or Olive as they are/were TM's and A.'s dogs.)  Our first dog joined us before we had children (if you can imagine we existed in such a state). Her name was Simone and she was a Bouvier Des Flanders. She was a great dog, but did become a wee bit overshadowed as children joined our family. Sadly she passed away when we were in Vietnam adopting TM and my dear sainted mother had to manage it all. (Sorry, Mom.) Here she is as a puppy. As a slightly older puppy, And as a full grown dog. You'll immediately notice the hair. As much as I adore Bouviers, I learned the hard way that a dog that needs regular hair maintenance is probably not a good match for me.  There were several years where we had many young children and didn't have a dog. Then, around the same time that G. and L. moved out of their cribs, a neighbor was fostering som...