Ohmmmm.

http://www.wlfi.com/global/video/popup/pop_playerLaunch.asp?clipId1=3018102&at1=News&vt1=v&h1=Parents+and+children+enjoy+yoga+together&d1=134834&redirUrl=www.wlfi.com&activePane=info&LaunchPageAdTag=homepage&clipFormat=flv

this link should take you to Lily and my's TV appearance for our yoga class.

Yesterday, we went to a local dairy where we got to tour the facility and see a calf being born. We were on a bus for the tour and when we stood up for disboarding, Lily pointed toward the back and said loudly "A Mexican! A Mexican!" Obviously she has been taught about Mexico and is starting to recognize people's ethnicities. We laughed, but explained it os not OK to point at people. Of course, since Lily and her dad are obviously Hispanic themselves, people thought this was cute.

She also amazed us yesterday by raising her hand in a group of 40 people and asking a question. I almost fell over!

About a month ago, we were in Indy at INS to renew Paco's green card. When I was filling out the form I told Paco it was complete except for his Alien number. This cracked Lillian up for hours to find out her daddy is a martian.

Misc

Here is Lily all ready to go into ballet. Good grief! She is adorable and loves it and I am very proud, but I must admit that I was the one mother that would have preferred kung fu and I got ballet. The moms sit outside and can see in via the one way glass. These moms chat about drill teams and cheereleaders and barbie. I knit.

Lillian was going through a difficult phase for awhile, but seems to be doing much better. She has been great recently. She has gone through a big developmental spurt recently as well as gaining an inch of height. She goes around reciting opposites. We were in an art gallery today and she pointed at a beauitful blue plate and said it looked like the MIlky Way. That kid.

Lillian sells our extra eggs and is doing a nifty business. She makes about $12-15 a week. She checks her ladies, all named Cahrlotte, and collects eggs every evening.

I am volunteering tomorrow for Obama. This election is so exciting. I have hope again.

Gotta go---bath is over.

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.

A Trying week

Well, I don't know where to start. It has been a busy, hectic and rough week. I am having a big Fibro flare which just makes everything hard. I apologized to Lillian today and tried to explain that my whole body hurts and I can't sleep well and it makes me cranky.

She is processing a lot right now and is a bit cranky herself. In the past week, she has prompted in-depth conversations about mortality and how life began----not her life, but life in general. At bedtime in Saturday, she asked me if Paco and I would die and whether she would die. I told her the truth and she cried and asked lots of questions. We talked about bodies and souls and reincarnation and burial. She has been very clingy, acting out, and terrified to sleep in her own room since this conversation. Paco and I told her that we understand that these are hard things to think about and may feel scary and if she has any questions, she should just ask us. We also told her she can sleep downstairs for awhile until she is not so scared. That helped a lot.

Tonight at dinner she asked me "if nobody was here, who grew us?" After a few clarifying questions, I determined she was asking how people came into being. Wooooo...first death and a few days later she slaps me with THE BIG QUESTION. I explained the concept of God as simply as I could and told her that whatever began the first life--even if that was just a little fish or a plant, it was something amazing and mysterious. She seemed satisfied for the time being and we did not go into evolution. The poor child has just discovered she and her family will die, I don't think I can hit her with her primate past right now.

Of course, Paco is still working doubles so I am dealing with all this, the pain, the farm, and bushels of produce alone and sometimes I just want to get in the car and drive away.----to a place with plush robes, a masseuse, and sparkling water.

A little comic relief---Lillian accosted Paco getting out of the shower (something he hates because she points and says --I see your winky!) and says to him "just so you know, you need to be more careful about not taking all the blankets at night. You try to wrap yourself like an enchilada and we get cold. Please try to stop this. Thanks.

Dog Days of Summer

Pictures are of Lillian dressed up "fancy" like Fancy Nancy, Lillian holding a handful of Mexican Sour Gherkins (ie Mouse Melons) from the garden, and Lillian after she has smeared avocado all over her face.

These are the dog days of summer. WE have been 90+ all week. The upside is the pool is 86-90 degrees all the time. We have spent our days playing and working. Lillian and I are still enjoying playgroups, yoga, and library programs. I try to get something fro the garden preserved in some fashion every day. Today my goal is eggplant. I think my attempt will be to dry the big ones and roast the pintung for dinner. I have 100's of tomatoes out there, but so far have had only 2 ripe ones. The cold spring has those heat lovers pushed back. Lillian and I picked a quarter bushel of tomatillos that I canned into salsa yesterday. There are 4 times that more coming. Salsa verde and chili verde is something that we can almost not have enough of.

My health is good--much better. Lillian and Paco have colds right now and I don't----completely MIRACULOUS!!! I am still not sleeping great and am having some digestive upset, but have some a long, long way. I did return to Zyrtec, due to headaches, but am not taking singulair or anything else for allergies/asthma. I am having a good summer and dread that it is flying past so fast.

Construction in front of La Scala is the blight on our summer. It is AWFUL and we are in dire financial starights. We will persevere, I know but it is really awful. Paco is working every night but Thursday, which makes extra long days for me too. I am so looking forward to Purdue being back in session and the sidewalk being done.

Beware what you plant, it may grow

The family reunion is over now and was a great success. It was hard to say goodbye to my family. I desperately want my parents to move here, but I don't think it is in the cards--at least not anytime soon.

Now that family has come and gone, I am dealing day and night with the fruits of my labor--I should say--meat, veggies, and milk of my labors. Honestly, I am afraid of my garden. Everything is growing like crazy. The squash vines will soon be coming in my bedroom window at night to strangle me. Cucumbers have gone insane. I have already made more pickles than we will ever eat and I have another planting coming on. Zucchini are pouring in and I have already harvested zuchinno ramipicante---the horn shaped Italian heirloom. I harvested the first tomatoes today--green sausage. I am not too impressed with them. I am battling potato beetles, but insect pressure has been low otherwise. Garlic is all curing. I am harvesting carrots as we can use them and a few onions too. The weeds are out of control in the raspberries. Eggplants are forming fruits like crazy and I have harvested a few. I have a large amount of poblanos already and some bell peppers. My beets are huge. I am trying some in the dehydrator. I also dried some of the squash and am pleased with the results--good for soups and casseroles. Frozen squash is abysmal. ooh, I almost forgot the mouse melons--Mexican Sour Gherkins--they are amazingly cute and delicous. Lillian eats all I can harvest. I will defintely grow them again, but in a raised bed or container, they are so tiny they get lost.

I have put up cherry, strawberry, raspberry, and currant jam--all made with agave nectar instead of sugar. I am making cheese for aging as milk accumulates. Dad helped me make Havarti last week and I made Gouda yesterday. All 14 Mr. Dinner's are in the freezer. Paco and I did one and it took an hour. A week later, Paco hired our dishwasher, Felix, to help him with the other 13 which were processed in the matter of 3 hours!! Felix grew up in the chicken business in Mexico. The first Mr. Dinner was turned into a Mexican-style Chicken soup today with our home grown carrots, squash, onions, cilantro, and garlic. How is that for local eating? Lillian just said we did a great job--"Mr. Dinner tastes just like regular chicken." If my calculations are right, we should be getting eggs from the Charlottes by the end of the month. Yippee!!

Lillian is having a great summer. She was thrilled to have a week of 24/7 playmates in her 4 cousins. her and Tory's birthday celebration was great and we took everyone to Indiana Beach on Tuesday. She was not the daredevil of last year, but did have great fun shooting water at Grampy, Sky, Tory, and Daddy and riding the Ferris wheel with Grampy and Daddy. Mom and I kept our feet firmly on the ground. Paco missed the boat, literally, while Mom, Dad, Lily, and I took a tour on Lake Shafer.

my little zookeeper

Lillian finished her 2nd bout of zoo camp today. The picture is of her holding an armadillo. She did great and has demonstarted for us her armadillo defense pose. She said it is armadillo yoga.

In other news, I cannot locate my Ipod. I think I will hyperventilate.

Also, I have woken up at 4 am for the past 2 days in a row. I miss remeron. This morning, I said forget this and went to the kitchen and took a muscle relaxer.

What herbivore do I look like?

All signs point to it being garlic harvest time. Lillian and I dug a few bulbs yesterday to make sure. Lillian was "using up all her might" clawing the sun baked earth away from one with her hands and said"what herbivore do I look like mom?"

After congratulating her on her vocab, I took a few stabs at it and she finally told me she was a squirrel---(technically an omnivore I believe.)

If that wasn't enough (and it was), we pulled a baby "cosmic purple" carrot out of the ground to check our progress and she wanted to eat it beofre I could even wash it off with the hose!

There are many times a week when I wonder what I was thinking starting a farm and then I have experiences like the ones above and I know exactly why. It makes it all worth it.

It was just about a year ago while listenin to Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle that I decided to take this on. Now we have 4 goats, 27 chickens, and a huge garden. It is a hellacious amount of work and I have developed muscles I haven't had for years. It's crazy, but I love it.

Lillian is now the proud owner of her own yoga mat and Yoga Pretzels card deck. We do yoga together 3-4 times a week. The card deck is awesome and I highly recommend it.

Boogie Woogie

I bought sour cherries at the Farmer's Market this morning with the idea of making a batch of jam and a pie for the freezer. I stopped at Payless for sugar-free pectin. After I spent 1 1/2 hours pitting cherries, I found out that the sure-jel sugar free brand only works with splenda or sugar. Crappo! I used sugar and made the reduced sugar version. Note to self and others interested in making jam or jelly without refined sugar---use the ball brand. They have you use apple juice and no additional sweetener or an alternative sweetener. I use agave nectar and the results have been great!!

Lizzie's feet are doing much better and the process is getting easier too. She doesn't like it, but will tolerate me holding one hoof at a time first in Epsom salts and then in antibiotic baths. She seems to know it is helping.

Lillian is going great, although she is getting dark circles under her eyes and I wonder if she is going to get sick. We had playgroup, yoga, and our weekly sushi lunch yesterday. She is a natural yogi. It is a great class. Our teacher, Suni, is from Puerto Rico and told us she organizes a Spanish speaking play group and asked us to come. She also runs a local mom's group that organizes lots of activities. Hopefully, it will not be like Mom's Club---way too blond, suburban, and pink!!! Since she teaches yoga and is from PR I hold out as lot of hope. And she has a 4 year old named Sebastian. Lily and I have one week of yoga left, but we signed up for another month session. It has been a great class.

I am still sleeping very poorly. I call the ND and the MD to get their opinions on what to do.
ND--continue the seditol plus herbal blend over the weekend and see how it goes, Monday she will prescribe an extended release melatonin.
MD--wanted me to try trazodone. After researching this I decided no way. Some studies say it is tumor causing. give me a break. get good sleep so I can die prematurely of cancer??

Needless to say, I will wait for melatonin and hope that helps.

The video is of Lillian dancing at La Scala. It was the grand opening of the bar and Lillian had an absolutely fantastic time. The musician is Joe Young.

cucumbers!!

Night before last, Lillian had the first cucumber right out of the garden. We are growing an heirloom variety called mini white and they are delicious. There was another yesterday, so mom got a taste too. We will soon have a steady little crop.

Lizzie, our milking doe has an infection on her feet. One foot is pretty bad. I had been cleaning and disinfecting daily with a little success, but things got worse quickly and Dr. Alinovi paid us a visit yesterday. Now, before milking I am soaking each hoof in epsom salts and then in an antibiotic bath. It is a big pain in the butt, but I am so glad it is helping her. By doing the topical soaks, we get to keep our milk. An antibiotic shot would have meant 28 days off milk. I hope this works.

We are gearing up for the family reunion. 17 people for 4 days and 9 for 7 days. I have a menu and have a few things in the freezer already. Lillian is very excited. She is overjoyed at 4 cousins who will want to play, jump, and swim as much as she does.

My health is better in general. I am finally being treated for hypothyroidism and it has helped a great deal. I had to give my MD and ultimatum--treat me or I am leaving. I have gone off the remeron (anti-depressant that helped with sleep also). I have also stopped taking Singulair. Life without remeron is good in that I have already lost 5 pounds in 3 weeks (it heightens appetite greatly), but my sleep is suffering a lot. I still take zanaflex that gets me to sleep, but I sleep very poorly after the first few hours. I am trying some herbal remedies with the ND, but am already feeling the effects of my sleeping disorder coming back. I am especially concerned since I have a family reunion to host.