catching up

Now that I am no longer milking and the garden is almost done, I am catching up. I spent the morning hours of Lily being at school, getting through the piles of crap on my desk. I even started Paco's citizenship app. If you apply before the end of the month it is cheaper and you get to take the easier test. Since Paco is a horrible test taker, it seems like the time to jump in.

The above pic is from early summer, but I would be remiss in not posting a trampoline pic.

Things are going well. Construction in front of La Scala is finally done. Our new GM is doing a bang-up job of increasing wine and liquor sales and the financial pic is a lot better. We are and will continue to be very careful---especially in this economy. I find it hard to imagine a way the W administration could have screwed up more. I also believe the only reason that this election is remotely close is due to racism and the high percentage of stupid rednecks in this country. Am I judgmental and a bit of an elitist? Guilty as charged, but I am not STUPID.

Lily is loving school, but her behavior recently has been on a decline. She is the over-tired, tantrum throwing girl that almost always means something is wonky in her diet. I am watching her diet like a hawk and waiting for the storm to pass. We are also talking a lot about patience and how it is just not fun to be a perfectionist. If anyone has ideas on how to curb the frustrations of a born perfectionist, pass them along.

She was snack leader today and we made popcorn balls. It was great, if sticky fun.

I have 4 dozen eggs and my fridge and they keep coming. Anyone want an omelet?

politics and eggs

As the election draws closer, I find myself getting excited. I have realized that if Obama wins, I will be, for the first time ever, patriotic.

I already decided that our little family will have a little red, white, and blue celebration if he wins. The idea of Barack Obama as president is so overwhelmingly delightful. It was announced yesterday that he is ahead even here in Indiana. ---In redneck, racist, backwoods Indiana. Maybe the one blessing of W is that he so totally screwed things up that it made it possible for someone like Obama to be electable. I am going to contact the local campaign and see how I can get involved.

As a family, we are doing a lot better. Things are back to normal. I am sleeping well, my mood is good, and pain is low. Lillian is so happy to be back in school and it gives structure to our days. As far as the farm, we are getting eggs now. It is like a daily treasure hunt. Lizzie is dried off and the garden has slowed way down.

I am taking yoga on Tuesdays and Lil and I take it together on Fridays. Our Yoga Together class was filmed by the local news yesterday and Lillian surprised me by desperately wanting to be interviewed. She chatted away and did not let me get a word in!

Paco has started running again. I am so glad. Proof to me that he is taking this blood sugar news seriously. Also, I made him an appt with the ND to talk about it.

things fall apart--or--finding a balance between blue go-gurt and hand-milked, handmade organic goat butter

well, it's been a long time. for the very few of you who read this blog, that is almost always a sign of trouble. I had a bad spell this late summer. things started getting bad near the end of July and got really bleak in August. I was doing so well that my MD and I made the decision to go off one of the anti-depressants in May. It seemed to go great, at first. Then I started to have sleeping trouble, did a bunch of stuff with the ND to help with that. Some of what we did was helpful, but not great and then things just got bad. I felt like it was nervous breakdown the revenge plus a horrible fibro flare at the same time.

Of course my brain and body fall apart at the height of the harvest and the height of the summer. it was just bad. once i hit bottom and had the sense of how bad it was, i went back on the meds I had been on 3 months earlier--when things were good. that made all the difference in the world, but took weeks. the depression med turns you into a zombie for the first weeks and it is just hard to function. a good deal more challenging if you are milking twice a day, spending 6-10 hours doing hard garden labor a week, and trying to preserve all that food for your family. oh, and, did i mention, your husband is only home long enough to be fed and your child demands your constant attention.

somehow we got through it. It was bad for me, but really bad for all of us. Lillian said to me that maybe I shouldn't have a daughter. that is the kind of thing that makes your heart stop. the kind of thing that makes you feel like the world's biggest asshole. I can't always control my brain chemistry or the waxing and waning of this crappy pain, but I can not overextend myself to the point that the work becomes my life instead of enhancing our lives.

so, a lot has changed. we are no longer milking. 2 goats have been sold. the garden is winding down, of it's own accord, and I threw in the towel on the weeds a long time ago. the big change is the milking. it is incredibly time consuming and demanding. besides the milking itself, there is the prep, the cleanup, and then you have to deal with all the milk. even just milking one goat, we had more than a gallon a day. that is a great deal of milk for a family of 3. i miss it and truly enjoyed it, but value the freedom even more. I am glad we did it, but I think chickens and garden are more than enough farm work for me right now.

we have eggs!!!! we started getting eggs about a week and a half ago. I love having our laying hens. they are so easy to take care of and you get treasure every day. we get aqua, seafoam, pink, and brown eggs from our 11 Auracuana hens. we started with 1-3/day, but have built to 4-6 a day now and soon will have too many to deal with. Lillian will eat as many as I would give her and have to watch her intake.

so, i was in the health food store and saw a pound of goat butter for $6.99. of course, to the uninitiated that seems crazy, but I think it's a steal. I know that about 12 hours of labor go into that butter. If I buy it twice a year so may daughter can have buttercream on her cake, I think she comes out way ahead! so that's the balance i am seeking---no blue go-gurt but also no handmade goat butter.

on the locavore front, we are doing great even if we no longer have our own dairy prodcuts. I have canned pickles, honey-cucumber-jalapeno relish, eggplant caponanta, tomato sauce (not worth the effort), lots of salsa, peaches, peach pie filling, applesauce, pickled beets, and various jams. I am still doing small batches of salsa as straggler tomatoes ripen. I have dried tons of eggplant, beets, peppers, and tomatoes. I have also roasted, peeled, and frozen lots of poblanos and chuska peppers. Plenty of zucchinni got turned into bread and is in the freezer. I will still be doing plenty of more apples---dried, pie filling and sauce. I will make a batch of pear-cranberry chutney when it is time. I have lots of triamble pumpkins to bake and freeze. we have both a 1/4 beef, and half a hog on the way for the freezer and 10 chickens alrwady in there (from our own backyard). not bad.