So, yes, I have been slacking on posting.  Yes, we have been busy, but nothing too exciting has been happening.  Since the sheep left, the chicks have grown so much bigger, we have retrieved a few cucumbers and summer squash from whats left of the gardens, and there is stuff still growing.  There was a week at StarBase University, some painting, not a lot of sunshine, even more rain, visits to the farm stand, some minor dread issues, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, a fender bender, or more like a fender squash, and many other adventures I am sure, they just do not come to mind at the moment.  And as the days go by, less and less time to get things done. 

It is August, and not only is it August, but we are halfway through it.  Not to depress anyone, but the kids and I go camping next week with my dad, then pack for our trip in MA, camp a week there, then home to spend a few days preparing for school.  Wow, that summer went quick.  Very much the feeling of imcomplete projects start to weigh in.  So, instead of jumping to far ahead of myself, I think I will just sit down and make more to-do lists for our camping adventures and pray the rain stops!

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There is plenty of fruit on the homestead.  We have consumed many wild strawberries this year, the blueberries are bright blue and sweet.

The apple and pear trees are bringing forth much fruit this year. 

 The raspberries are bright red, and the blackberries are ripening. 

Now to just get out there to take advantage of all the hill has to offer us!

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This last week has been very busy here on the homestead.  I will begin with a sheep update.  Last week we were awoken to a 5:30am call informing us the sheep were out.  They had been just grazing around, but again, grazing in the gardens is looked highly upon.  Three of our gardens had been ‘nibbled’ on.  Some would say destroyed, others have said three months of our work lost, but we are replanted some things, and trying to save others.  Peas are gone.  It was frustrating.  Even more so, because we learned over the weekend that hay was going to be $4/bale this year.  And so far, with them not being our sheep (our agreement was that we would take care of my brother’s sheep while he and his family were at college for a couple years.  We could breed them, for our own flock, to sell lambs or put meat in the freezer, the wool ours to keep.  They would take them back when in x years when school was finished) there has been little return, just expense.  With money tight, and prices rising everyday on everything, something has to give, and unfortunatly, that meant that the sheep had to go back to my brother, and he had to find another place for them.  We were shepherds for one year.  We did not get to experience lambing, or any major crisis, so overall it was a good experience.  And maybe someday, we will have them again.  But desimating three gardens(our food source) was the last straw.  And they are no longer on the hill grazing.  I was sad, but ’tis life.  Our kids took our explanation in stride.  I think they are true farm kids, where they realize (maybe not understand) that sometimes these things happen.  Like death, we rejoice in the time we had together.  We tried a new experience, learned new things, we grew from it. 

It is aggrivating to me, because ‘they’ won.  Whomever is at fault for the rising cost of fuel, forcing other prices to soar, forcing us to decide…they won.  Me bending over and sacrificing so that others may drive their 10mpg SUV 30 miles into town everyday to window shop.  Those who naysay and judge our chosen path in life…they won.  I feel defeated.  I have carefully, dutifully worked in those gardens, squishing bugs, and  cucmber beetles, not giving in to using chemicals, even though those pests have killed many cucumber plants, but we did spray…only to be defeated.  But so is life.  ‘You live, you learn’ I was always told.  ‘That which does not break us, makes us stronger’.  This is part of who I am.  I am a ‘dealer’, I cope and move on.  I don’t complain (well atleast not outloud), and scream and shout that something that didn’t go right.  I accept the fact and move on.  Seriously, I can figuritively be hit beside the head with a 2×4 repeatedly and still get the task at hand done.  Which honestly explains a lot!

So now we take a deep breath and move on. 

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We have picked and eaten many strawberries from the field.  I have also put several bags in the freezer.  I love strawberries.  Yesterday I was able to go to a U-pick strawberry fields with some friends.  I haven’t done u-pick berries in a long time.  There is no searching for the berries like the wild ones.  These are in nice rows, they are good sized berries, and they tasted good too.  I was surprised at how many people and were there, and how many berries.  I brought home 9 quarts of strawberries.  I think I would like to bring the kids over, for the experience, not for the labor, but I am afraid that they wouldn’t never pick wild berries again.  Those nice, neat, easy picking rows would spoil any future wild berry picking.  So, now what to do with all those berries.  Not just the 9 quarts from yesterday, but the wild ones, too.  For now, I have put them all in the freezer whole, mostly because they will go bad very quickly in these high temperatures and high humidity if they are left out.  First thing that comes to mind is to make preserves (or even a sauce) like I did with the apples.  The preserve or sauce could be frozen or canned.  I think I may do a little of both. 

 Ingredients
3 1-pint baskets (about 6 cups) fresh strawberries, hulled. Frozen strawberries will also work.
2 cups sugar
Lemon juice from one lemon

Place hulled strawberries in heavy large saucepan and mash coarsely. Cook strawberries over medium heat until beginning to thicken, stirring frequently, about 6 minutes. Reduce heat to low. Add 2 cups sugar and stir until dissolved. Increase heat to medium and boil gently until mixture thickens and mounds on spoon, stirring frequently, about 20 minutes.

Skim any foam that rises to the top.  Remove from heat. Stir in the lemon juice. Cool. Makes about 3 cups. Can be prepared 1 week ahead.  Refrigerate in airtight container.

Now I haven’t tried hot water bath canning strawberry perserves, but in another recipe(that used 5 cups of sugar instead of 2) The end of the recipe had this added:

Pour mixture into a shallow pan and let stand, uncovered, for 12 to 24 hours. Ladle strawberry mixture into hot, sterilized jars, leaving 1/4-inch headspace. Process for 20 minutes in a boiling water bath.

 Making perserves is a quick, easy way to take care of those strawberries. Later we can make other things with them, like a strawberry fruit leather, if we want.

Strawberry Fruit Leather

(or home-made Fruit Roll-up)

Use 2 pounds of strawberries, hulled, and 1/2 cup honey.  Remember, flavor becomes concentrated after dried, so please sweeten to taste and expirement.   In a saucepan, simmer the berries and honey over low heat, stirring and mashing the fruit.

   Cover your cookie sheets with plastic wrap, then pour fruit mixture 1/4 inch thick on each cookie sheet.  Place in oven at 150 degrees (or lower, depending on your oven) for about 10 hours.  When fruit is leather like, and tacky let cool, then either rip or cut into desired size/shapes.

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I think that the summer weather is finally here.  The humidity has been high for the last week, and now the temperatures are finally matching it.  We went from high 60’s one day, to low 50’s that evening, to reaching 90’s that next day.  That honestly is a shock to the system, making it feel even hotter.  It also means that I rearrange the schedule again because I really do not want to be weeding in the gardens, or mucking out animals at noon time when temperature is 95 out.  What this means is that if I do nto want to suffer from heat exhaustion while doing chores, I must get up and get them done before the heat really sets in, or in the evening when the temperatures have started to drop again.  This morning I woke up at 5am, got Chad his lunch, cooked some steaks, did some dishes, a load of laundry, fed and watered the chicks, dogs, sheep and horses, worked in the gardens for 2 hours, making it back inside the house at 8am when the kids were just starting to get up, and the sun was really beginning to beat down upon me.  Our house has many trees around it, so it stays quite cool, several degrees cooler than up on the hill.  They may not let much sun through to heat the house during the winter, but during the summer it is most enjoyable.  So now, I am off to do the rest of my days activities, apply aloe to my sunburn, give Chase a haircut, more laundry, more dishes, finish weeding out the downstairs closet, start the paint in Zoe’s room (?), work on removing wallpaper in livingroom, fix drawer runner in kitchen, then back to chores after supper when it cooler. 

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I think we have finally settled down from the holiday weekend.  The kids and I have been ‘celebrating’ the 4th since the middle of last week.  Picnics, barbeques, birthday parties, visiting, and swimming.  It is exhasuting being that social!  I think I am more exhausted from it all than the kids, I think.  Only the basic chores have been done, so today I have to really push to get things done.  Sometimes it is so frustrating to work so hard, to enjoy the simple life.  Especially when everyone expects you to be able to drop everything and come visit, come swim, come cook-out…and those projects are pushed forward.  I think every weekend this summer we have some function going on.  Do not get me wrong, I love going to weddings, family gatherings, birthday parties, showers and socializing (to an extent), but sometimes it is awful hard to be there when in the back of my mind thoughts of weeding the garden, fences, chicken coops, mowing, fences, planting, canning and so forth are lingering.  I do think I thought during the clebration festivities, that if I am suppose to be celebrating my independence, I should be home weeding, or working on that outdoor solar shower.  Some might say that I need to just relax, not worry about it, and once in a while (more often than we like, I think), we do.  But it is hard to relax, when you know that cucumber beetles are still running rampid on your cucumber plants, and the harvest isn’t looking as great as you had planned/hoped for.  Others may be able to relax, because they are not thinking about putting away enough tomatoe sauce for a family of 5 for the winter, they only think about it when they put it on their grocery list for that week.  Or, did we fell enough trees for the winter?  Should I be buying corn and storing it for the winter?  What about hay this winter?  Should I be out haying instead of enjoying this yummy bbq?  It alls comes down to time management, I guess.  When I was in college, that is what they kept telling us.  Time management is so very important to get the things done in your life, to fit in the ‘me time’, ‘quiet time’, the things that need to be done time, and the enjoyment time.  I hate to say that they were right, but to an extent, they were.  A healthy balance of the social activities that is filling up our summer calendar, with the necessary chores. 

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It is the 4th of July.  Happy day of celebrating our countries independce.  My six year old asked me “why do we celebrate this day, there are a lot of flags, is it like flag day?”  So I breifly went into an explaination.  To most six year olds, I am sure a simple ‘to celebrate our countries freedom’ would have sufficed.  This would have worked for him too, I am sure.  But I had to go half way around the barn in my explaination.  He knew about the Pilgrams, and that they were from England.  So I explained to him that it was the day that many important people signed a peice of paper stating that we were no longer dependent on Great Britian.  We were our own country, and no longer dependent on anyone but ourselves.  As the words came out of my mouth, they kind of hung there in the air.  Are we independent today.  Parents joke about when their adult children become independent, and are no longer living at home, or asking for food, money, clothing, etc.  They are able to ‘make it’ on their own.  When  I look at it from a larger perspective, I have to wonder if we are.  We as human beings are too dependent on fuels, electricity, and what other people say we need to be eating, cell phones, the internet, and so forth. 

On a smaller scale, is my family independent?  I think we are, to an extent.  We can grow and raise our own food, even grow food to raise our food.  We can preserve the harvest (if I am lucky enough to get any harvest this year!)  We are resourceful enough to barter/trade with our neighbors for the things we/they need.  We really could go without cellphones, the internet, technology, if we needed to.  It would make our ‘jobs’ more difficult, for they depend greatly on technology. 

So today, our family is going to celebrate our independence (or atleast our getting closer to it)!

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What is sad to me, today being July 3rd, is two things. 

First, it just became summer, and we have barely had any summer weather.

Second, for some reason in my mind the 4th of July signifies that summer is half over and that schools will be starting again soon. 

Okay, so there is a third.

Third, I have no peas from the garden for the 4th of July.  I have only been able to harvest radishes.  By the time you add the late planting(although it really wasn’t that late), the fact that the sheep, and the cucumber beatles are determined that I not have anything from the garden, I am lucky to be harvesting radishes. 

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Picture of the day

They aren’t blue yet, but they really are Maine high bush blueberries

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I think we all have many of this kind of relationship in our lives.  Whether they be with actual beings, or machinary.  Usually this kind of love hate relationship I have with tools.  The things in my life that are suppose to assist me in my day to day chores/activities.  I love the cordless drill.  It surely beats having to screwdriver, and can get the job done, quickly.  It can also be so heavy that holding it up for extended periods of time can cause great pain in the muscles in my forearms and shoulders. 

I also have this sort of relationship with our electric fences.  Either the solar one, or the plug in one.  It seems like they have a mind of their own, and never work when you need them too.  Only when you forgot to shut it off while going in to check what infact is sticking out of Tango’s mane, and the shock is…well…shocking.  Or when there is moose running down your driveway, and he decides that this way through the fence line is the best way to go to get away from you.  Then you are left with hundreds of feet of pulsating fence on the ground, and a horse shaking in the corner, wide eyed, and the plans you had made for rest of the day are pushed aside to fix stupid fence! 

Hoses fall into that love hate relationship too.  I love not having to carry buckets of water half a mile to the sheep and horses.  I hate that so easily tangle.  I have tried the roll a hose ideas, the hose roller wheels.  To no avail, there is always something with a hose.  It leaks, its tangled, its bent.  Grr!  Is the benefit of not having to carry 50 gals of water, 5 gals at a time half a mile worth the idea of the hose…

My current love hate relationship is with vehicles.  Now, this is not your typical rant on the price of gas.  I could really rant about the prices.  The fact that I was so excited to see that prices had gone down to $4.04/gal versus the $4.21/gal it was two weeks ago irritates me.  I could complain at how difficult it makes things, and that there are people having to decide between necessities and gas in their vehicle to get to work to pay for those necessities that they cannot pay for because the price of fuel is too high.  This in itself is another post…

In Maine, one’s vehicle must be registered, insured and inspected yearly.  This year, we are faced with a decision.  With the changes and tightening of the vehicle inspection regulations a few years ago, we are faced with what to do about our vehicles.  Last year, in order to obtain an inspection sticker (which is required to be driving your vehicle leagally) a lot of money was spent.  This year we are faced with the same situation.  Let me point out to you, that this vehicle that is in inspection limbo is not a 30 year old rusty pick up, rather it is a 10 year old van.  And why won’t it pass inspection this year?  Many little things.  Many little things that will add up to much more than we want to pay. 

So what do we do? 

A) Spend money (that we do not have) to fix these little problems that are hindering us from driving it legally?  Only to have to do more of the same for the next years inspection, or;

B) Do we take a risk and purchase another vehicle (with the same $ that we do not have)?  Not knowing how long this new purchase will last us, and the probability of having to spend the same kind of $ for the next years inspection, or;

C) Drive our the van with an invalid inspection sticker?  Which has been done before, thus causing us to be pulled over, and thankfully only be warned, not fined. or;

D) Park the van, and limit ourselves to only one vehicle?  Now, I have thought in great detail about this one.  It wasn’t that long ago (8 years ago) that we did only have one vehicle.  We also had only one child at the time, making it much easier to either drop hubby off at work, or bum rides.  Then I was led to believe that I needed to get a job outside of my home and family, driving 30 minutes to this job, with no one else around me to car pool with, thus almost requiring us to obtain that second vehicle.  Leaving us in that vicious circle of “need vehicle to go to work, must go to work to pay for vehicle” and round and round we go. 

E) Purchase buggy and harness for Tango, sport the “pick up your own poo” sign and off to town we go.  ( I like this idea, but am afraid that he is getting to far along in years to rely on)

 At the moment, our situation lies here.  The inspection on the van expires the end of July.  We currently also own a Jeep Wrangler (with Chad working from home most days, it is more available to me).  We have already changed our ‘running around” habits because of the ever rising fuel prices.  When we do go somewhere, I cram in as many other things I can, thus preventing another trip.  At this moment I do not work outside of our home, not requiring me to commute somewhere everday.  If there is an emergency situation requiring us to get somewhere when the jeep is not available, there is enough people nearby that I am sure would be willing to assist.  So, is it possible for us to go down to one vehicle? 

It would really mean tightening up routines more than they already are.  Scheduling our shopping for groceries, appointments, and other necessities, and planning for those things even further in advance.  It is aggrivating to me, because I already do so much planning, scheduling and rearranging already.  I shouldn’t be bothered by this, but I am.  We have a couple more weeks to figure it out, though. 

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