Miscellany

One of the ladies who was here for our pig slaughtering weekend brought me some new kefir grains and some hands-on instructions from her daughter. She'd given me my originals a a couple of months earlier, but I'd not done a good job with them. Now we are enjoying it much more.

I also made my first batch of kombucha this week; I'm very curious about it, and will try it out tomorrow.

The kids and I spent about an hour in the garden this morning, clearing and cleaning up some, so that 12yo son will be able to mow the area in preparation for spreading compost, manure, and maybe even moving some chickens through. I noticed the other day that where the chickens have moved through the "orchard" (okay...the area with some sticks in the ground), there are healthy, greener patches of grass. So we thought we'd give them a run in the garden after it's mowed.

Yesterday, the kids and I took a day off from regular academics to have time to do a bit of catching up on a number of things and to brainstorm on garden and a few other things. This was a refreshing and much-needed mental change.

The third batch of soap I've ever made, which we made during the pig-slaughtering, is curing well and looks like it will be a good bacth for the lady who brought the kefir grains. We're looking forward to seeing her and her family again next month, and the soap will be ready by then.

Need laughter? Watch a movie with some schtick in it with a 5yo. You may not like schtick, but that doesn't matter; you'll laugh at the 5yo's laughter; it's extremely infectious. Our 5yo had the rest of us doubled over last night as he laughed at the schtick in a movie the rest of us have seen dozens of times.

Cheri has tagged me in a game of blog tag. I'm not sure, but I think I've been tagged before and ignored it. However, I'll give this one a shot (but won't be at all offended if those I tag choose to ignore it).

Game of Blog Tag Rules:

• Link to the person that tagged you.
• Post the rules on your blog.
• Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself on your blog.
• Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
• Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs.

Some random facts about me (since, of course, I have no weird ones):

1. In August, I will have been married to Keith for 25 years!
2. Not that long ago, I couldn't stand touching raw poultry; even fixed a turkey one Thanksgiving without ever actually placing my hands on the bird. Now I help process chickens--hundreds just this year!
3. Our family is indebted to Joel Salatin and our daughter's camo skirt, because it was at his farm and at least partially because of her skirt three years ago that we met a family from the church family we are now so thankfully a part of. (Okay, it was really God, but maybe He used the camo skirt!)
4. I enjoyed the company of the turkeys and the pigs last summer when I was hanging out clothes.
5. A great pleasure I have is seeing how our daughters are lovely young women, inside and out, and how they can run our home as well as or better than I can.
6. I really like that our 12yo son (and full-time main farmer) can do most things around the house and farm, so that we don't have to wait for Keith to fit so many of them into his schedule. It's like having a man around the house all the time.
7. A persistent cough for the last nine months has caused my laugh to occasionally sound like Muttley's.

I started to do the links to folks I was tagging, but I've got something of a nauseous headache and don't have the patience or the stamina to finish it up, so I'll be a grouch and not tag anyone.

Guess that's about it.

Mary Susan