Thursday, June 16, 2011

The sun made a nice appearance today.  Seems a bit like late April, early May around here in terms of weather.  Of course, the date on a calendar is not what matters.  We’ve got tons of things to do.  I like this time of year.  It’s not generally too hot, yet the sun is shining and the grass is growing.

Our little place is looking so good.  The appraiser came out on Tuesday, and if all goes well, in the next week or so, we will officially own our farm.  Not that it doesn’t feel like we own it now, but it is nice to have the piece of paper that says that it is ours for good.  No more of this leasing business.  That said, we are SO grateful to our seller for allowing us to take our time to buy the property.  She is, no doubt, ready to move on with her life, but she has nicely agreed to work with us, we really appreciate that.

The strawberry pick is still on.  After getting the first 30 pounds in the fridge yesterday, we headed back out for another 36 pound pick today!  I estimate that we are about half way done.  I was thinking yesterday about my progression in preservation of food.  Ten years ago, I bought a flat of strawberries at the farmer’s market, and that was my yearly need for fresh berries all year long.  This year, we’re hoping to get a 100 pound pick!  Julie and I pooled our berries to start some strawberry wine.  It’s now mashed, sugared and waiting for some yeast to send it off.  This should be a fun project.  The rest of the berries are going in the freezer for today, but the next pick will be to make a gallon or two of strawberry syrup.  We’ve decided to stop our dependency on maple syrup in the house since it is so easy to inexpensive to make our own berry syrups.

We headed off to the farmer’s market, but for the first time ever, came home empty handed.  Julie swears that she’s never going with me again because I yak and yak with all the farmers around.

We had a nice dinner with the kids’ godparents.  Linnea is headed off to the south for the summer, and we will miss her.

When we finally made it home, the kids and I worked on getting some chores done.  I cleaned the cow stall a little bit more, which meant more potato hilling!  I’m getting close to getting done.

I also fixed the sprinkler so the garden got a nice thorough soaking!  Add some sun and we might actually get some food!  It’s time to start planting the winter garden OH MY!

Our house is looking a little junky, so I spent the remainder of the daylight hours cleaning it up.  I did manage to clean out the milk fridge really well, so as of now, the milk will be in the new Cast Iron farm, milk fridge!  Very exciting for us.

My neighbor (who also gets milk from me) called me and said she was having some problems with a goat that had just kidded.  The mama’s udder was all plugged up and the kid wouldn’t nurse.  I headed over to help out.  It is so nice to have a like-minded neighbor.   She is so sweet, and she offered to help our around here as she could.  Now that’s what I call community.

Lots to get done tomorrow…