I love Thanksgiving.

I wish my whole family could be here together to celebrate. It's beautiful here. Just look at these colors!

These are on the drive up to Aspen Grove.








And if any of you want to come, we have turkey waiting for you! Actually we have five. This is one of them getting ready for bed.




Isn't she beautiful? Maybe we won't eat her this year. She looks so peaceful up on the swingset, doesn't she?

Canning OVER. Sigh of relief.

It's that time of year again. My favorite season of all. I love the fall with the leaves and the snap in the air and the anticipation of the holidays. But the thing I love most about the fall is that it's the time when all the extra produce (except the apples left on the tree which I'm ignoring) are in their bottles or rotten in the compost pile, one of the two. Every year it's a battle between what gets processed and what *cough* doesn't. And my husband keeps track. He keeps track of every single thing that doesn't get done. Sometimes I wish he would count the things that do get done. But that's not his nature. He is an analyzer extraordinaire, and he knows down to the ounce what food got wasted. It makes me sad too, to see the food that doesn't get processed. I know he works hard to grow that food and I'd really like to get ALL of it into bottles, but my heavens, sometimes I feel like I'm drowning in tomatoes, zucchini and peaches. I just don't dwell on it. It's my nature. I'm not an analyzer. Of anything. Sigh.

But we're done. Yeah. One more year in the bottle. We have a whole winter to get ready for next year. Once I get my bottles organized, I'll post a picture of the rows of shiny yummy food. Or not. Organizing is also not in my nature.

Thank You

To those generous souls who have found it in your hearts to support Sarah in accomplishing her dream, we thank you. As soon as she reaches her goal we will remove the donation buttons, this is not an attempt to generate revenue. I know she will make her goal. God bless you for helping her.

Family Reunions

The most wonderful thing about family reunions is watching the cousins get to know each other, and seeing all the new babies. I love new babies. Thanks everyone for sharing your homes, families, and time with us.

Turkeys are getting big.

Except that cute black one got his head stuck in the fence yesterday. We don't know how long he stood there squawking unable to free himself. My husband freed him from his chicken wire prison and he stumbled around til he found the water, then just sat there for the rest of the day. Whoever says turkeys are smart has not met our turkeys.

They are cute though. And delicious when they are a little bigger.

New Chicks

It's a little late in the season, but our grouchy hen who has been sitting on the next growling and pecking at anyone who tries to take her eggs . . .
. . . hatched an adorable baby chick. It's a cross. The father is probably our frankenstein rooster Stitch, who my children found sliced nearly in half by some nameless predator, and my husband sewed up with embroidery thread or dental floss (I can't remember which) while my nine year old daughter held it down, and then he nursed it back to health in a box in our laundry room. We thought he would die, for sure. But, that Stitch is tough! He's a miracle rooster, and truly enjoys being king of the harem here now.

The mother could be any one of the hens, we don't know which. (When a hen is setting, my husband steals and marks a couple of eggs from other chickens and puts them under the setting hen to increase the chances of hatching.) Surrogate(?) momma was sitting on eight or nine eggs and only this little cutie hatched. We'll see what his mama was when he grows up a little. Maybe a Rhode Island Red.

At any rate, we have new babies! Yipee!

Honey Harvest

Last week we harvested five gallons of delicious honey. Here are some pictures of my amazing husband at work with thousands of (sedated) bees. First he smokes the hive he's chosen to raid.

You can see the frames in the box here, with masses of bees on it. Do you see the white wax over top of the honeycomb in one of the frames? That's capped over honey, which means it's cured and ready for us to extract.
We take the honeyframes in the house one at a time (you don't want to uncap delicious honey outside where the bees will catch wind of it and come looking for their treasure. He uses an electric knife that heats up when you plug it in to gently remove the thin cappings from the honeycomb. (We melt that down later, clean it up, strain it, and use it for lipgloss, soap, and other things. I haven't tried candles yet, but I will. Someday. When I have time.)

Then he puts the frames in a spinner, and turns the crank on the top to pull the honey out of the uncapped comb with centrifugal force. (Did I spell that right?) It comes out at the bottom into a honey strainer. Kaela loves this part.


Here she is watching over the process.

The bees hang around while we spin out the honey, mildly annoyed, but we spin far away from the hives so that we don't a major attack. I'll come back tomorrow and post a picture of the strained, bottled, and labelled honey. Mmmmmmm. It's delicious this year.

Father's Day

Yesterday after the barbecue was over and Gene's parents and my Mom and Jordan and Baby Peter had gone home, Gene commented rather sadly that none of his kids had called him on Father's Day. Sarah, my sweet girl (I know none of you believe this given her loud and rambunctious personality but really, she's so sweet) wrote him a poem about how grateful she was that he was willing to be the father for her even though she is often ungrateful. I cried when I read it. Gene teared up and said it was the nicest thing a kid had ever done for him, and it's getting framed and hung by his bed along with Kaela's darling offering, a collage with a picture of her and collection of farm animal stickers and a little hand written to Daddy from Kaela.

Man, just when you think you know a kid they go and do something really amazing and remind you once again that we so often underestimate their depth of feeling and compassion. Sarah, I love you. And Gene, I love you too for being the kind of man that you are. Father's Day was wonderful this year.

Mother's Day

Why did it take me until my very last child to relax and enjoy Mother's Day?  What wonderful times I've been missing with my paranoid, insecure convictions that I was the worst mother on earth and that my children may have been better off with wolves.  Or bears.  I hear they make good mothers.  I used to go to church and listen to all the talks about marvellous moms barely controlling tears of despair.  One Mother's Day not so very long ago I actually went to bed right after church and didn't get up until the next day.   It was the coward's way out, I know, but at the time it seemed like the only solution. Only in sleep did the critical voices in my head shut their mouths.  

Now in the waning years of motherhood, with my youngest child having just turned seven and my oldest two up and out, I realize that not only was I way too hard on myself, but the reality is that my kids remember the best and the worst of times--and they love me anyway.   It's quite liberating.   I do my best.  I mess up.  They love me anyway.   That goes both ways.  They do their best.  They mess up.  I love them anyway.   It's all good!  And one other thing -- it's funny that the people who worry about doing the right thing generally AREN'T  the ones who have the big problems.  I don't think those moms you read about in the paper who lock their children in basements and feed them only dry dog food or who leave their children behind while they pursue drugs and rock and roll ever worried about whether or not they were a good mother.   So if you are one of those worriers, just stop it!  You're doing fine.   And all you young Moms out there, take my advice--Enjoy the messy breakfast in bed, first grade hand plaques, flowers picked out of your garden, sticky hugs.  Enjoy the tributes to motherhood, because you're earning your own tribute right now one crisis at a time.   Enjoy the cards and the compliments. You're the MOM!  What a great thing to be!