Lyme Disease, Schlyme Disease - Turn ALL the Lights On!

 Good morning to you on this Winter solstice day of December 21st, 2023!

The shortest day of the year here where I live means we have about 8 1/2 hours of daylight - almost 8 hours LESS than we have in June!

That's a lot of dark hours and I do the best I can to keep our house warm and happy with lights!  Big lights, little lights, candle lights, Christmas lights.....Indoor and outdoor lights!  The lights stay on (all of 'em) during the day to keep it, well....light!  Am I worried about the electric bill?  Hmmm, good question, but with the invention of LED bulbs, it's not such an issue anymore, so NO!  I'm not!  I'm more into keeping mental health and good spirits high!  Plus, I'm afraid of the dark, so there are also lights in the barn, on the porches and at the pumphouse!  Well!  That takes care of the material things - but I also have inner light!  Jesus is the light of the world and He lives within us at my house, so we've got LIGHT EVERYWHERE, inside and out!!!!!!

Not sure what brought that on, except I've had a wicked flu/virus for literally the last couple weeks and am FINALLY feeling like I may someday return to what is considered 'normal' for me!  Chronic Lyme Disease makes every virus a challenge that lasts much longer and harder for some of us than for 'normal' people, unlike others, who catch something, only to declare a few days later that they are now well!  What?!  Takes me much, much longer...BUT, we are fearfully and most wonderfully made and these ole immune systems, even flawed, continue to heal us up eventually!

Life on this farm is puttering along rather well, in the big picture.  I'm glad, for the moment, that my goats are dry (not milking as they rest up) as kids aren't due until the end of January or so.  I've put my VERY busy Etsy shoppe on vacation mode until after the first of 2024 (only to spend the first week so far, 'sick as a dog')  The biggest projects here are on hold while Bossman does a renovation job for someone else, so for the moment, no sawdust or tool noise!  The best thing?  My kitchen is FINISHED!  It is huge and I love it.  It is unlike anyone else's kitchen and somewhat eclectic but it was made for ME and I'm tickled red.  (I don't care for pink...)  Four and a half years after moving, we finally finished our kitchen.  It is a milestone and I appreciate it all the more, having not had it for so long!

The next project here at the 'new' place is a stairway to the attic!  It is FULL of....junque, shall we say?  I intend to divide and conquer (and have a Spring yard sale...) and then be able to set up my quilting machine & its frame up there!  Bossman has accomplished the rudimentary beginnings of a permanent staircase so the dream is real!  The junque is also real - it is the contents of our Dry Box storage units after we decided it would be lovely to NOT pay Dry Box fees and just stuff it all in the attic!!!  Sigh...

I recently rescued my GINORMOUS doll house from a rat-infested, leaky outbuilding where is has languished since THE MOVE.  At first I thought I'd have to just burn it and be done with it, but after scrubbing/removing pieces/painting with Kilz primer, it is salvaged and living in my already-too-crowded craft room!  It is one more concern crossed off my list and now I can redecorate/rebuild/rejuvenate at my leisure (whatever that is!).

I have given myself about two weeks off from my store, as I mentioned.  One week behind me devoted to illness, now forging ahead to the next week!  I'm hoping to have about 3 days of Christmas meals/celebrations/get-togethers, work on my dollhouse, imagine up several new ideas and try them for items in my Etsy shoppe, work on piecing a quilt and organize the attic!!!!!  Apparently this virus has affected my sensibilities, as well!

(Aren't these the cutest grandbabies EVER?????)

Did you know that a simple bag of white chocolate chips, melted in the microwave (or double-boiler) with pretzels added, then spread out and chilled make DELICIOUS easy Christmas treats?

Often blogging in my head, I seldom sit down and actually write.  Since I needed to sit down while recuperating, I am a captive audience, so to speak, and have told myself in no uncertain terms that I shall now write this blog and so I have (I'm quite well behaved!)

I've now come back to this after taking a break to go outside and feed my bunnies, goats & cats.  I took apples to the bunnies for treats as I'm pretty sure cage life is boring and a good crunchy apple should brighten up their day.  The goats had to settle for hay, water and a little conversation.  The cats lied.  They had already been fed but trotted up to the barn with me, talking along the way and expecting to be patted & tails pulled but when we got there the food dish was already filled.  Silly cats.  The chickens can be ignored until tomorrow as I've run out of gumption (and they've plenty of food & water until the morrow).  Back to my recliner for a bit!

Well, that's a little bit of an update from an ordinary ole December day on the farm.  Hope you are finding JOY in the holiday season and remembering that wise men STILL seek Him!

Til next time....Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and May God Bless you!

Squirrel Sickness Strikes Again!

 My husband calls it Squirrel Sickness....my frantic, erratic desire to can, dry, preserve, press, save up all manner of foodstuffs!   It's the time of year where I find that last year's efforts have been mostly eaten up and the empty jars are calling to me! 

 

The garden is, well, sort of a mess.  I've got lovely raised beds but the weather or the general growing season seems a little weird this year and some of my plantings have gone to pot.  I may have gotten distracted from the weeding, as well.  The broccoli AND the cabbage plants bolted (no, they didn't leave, they went-to-seed too early) so none of that for us this garden season.  We have been picking sugar snap peas, Walla Walla onions, blueberries and potatoes and enjoying them immensely.  The Marion berries (a type of big blackberry) shriveled on the vines and the green beans look like the last picking, rather than the first, but there will be some.  I'm determined to be a good steward of whatever does produce a crop, so today I canned 11 pints of dill pickles and 7 pints of green beans - Yesterday was 40 pints of Apple Butter from our newly discovered Transparent Apple tree on this old farm!  I've also been drying herbs - so far I've got the Thyme, Oregano and Peppermint dried and tucked away; still have Rosemary, Sage and Basil to collect and dehydrate.

We've put about 20 rabbits in either the freezer or canning jars now.  It's amusing to see the reactions of people if you suggest to them that the 'chicken' in the salad is actually rabbit.  Some are anxious to try it....others look at you and wonder what kind of monster eats a bunny!  My three year old granddaughter watched me get a few rabbit carcasses cut into serving pieces for the freezer and announced that SHE wants to eat those bunny rabbits, lol!  Gotta love kids who live on (or visit Grammy & Grampa) on the farm!

The chickens I hatched out this Spring are starting to lay (finally...) and I'm putting a few of those away in the pantry - waterglassed.  Actually, they are in a solution of pickling lime and water and will keep for almost a year that way.  When the chickens slow down this winter, hopefully I'll be able to supplement my baking ingredients with my own waterglassed eggs!

Hubby pulled the 'keeper' onions and they're outside in the shade curing out on an old gate we keep just for that purpose.  In a week or so we'll cut the tops and store them away!

No doubt I have what people now call ADD or ADHD, though back when I was younger we called it a Type A personality, lol.  I flit from job to job (not always finishing one before the next one catches my eye!) but I LOVE all the work on out little farm and harvest time is my favorite!  I just picked the first ripe tomatoes tonight and tomorrow we'll eat the first of the green beans!

A sweet almost-daughter who leads VBS (Vacation Bible School) needed a Suit of Armor for this year's theme.  We talked and brainstormed about how to acquire one....and then I said a person could just make one!  She looked at me in horror, lol...so I volunteered!  He came out pretty decent and enjoyed his couple of weeks at the church!

In my 'spare' time (ha!) I still run Etsy and Ebay stores, making and selling primitive craft items.  It keeps me hopping, but I've enjoyed crafting since I was a child (looooooong time ago..)  We also took a few days to follow the grandkiddies down to Fort Stevens State Park in Oregon for a little camping adventure and enjoyed the time with them immensely.  Just today lil grandaughter asked me if I had any more of 'those long red things we had when we were camping'.  Took me a couple minutes to realize she meant Red Vines candy!  

Chores are done for the evening - the rabbits are fed & watered and the chickens won't go in until dark so can't lock them safely up for the night yet.  I'll settle in my chair for a little reading with a mug of hot peppermint tea and some homemade toast and some of that apple butter now.

I'll close with a lovely passage from the Bible that always warms my heart and encourages me greatly - I Thessalonians 4:18 says 'comfort one another with these words' as it talks about being reunited with those who have gone before us when Christ returns.  I still greatly miss my sweet mama and other beloved friends and relatives and this passage makes me ever so happy!  

Now, on to my toast and tea.......

Life on the Farm - It keeps happening!

It's been over a year since I've posted on this blog -journal.  Time surely flies and it flies whether you're having fun or not. 

 It was an eventful, if not always pleasant year for the four of us who live on our little homeplace.  I'll give a quick summary and then we'll get on to current events, shall we?  After bruised/broken ribs and Covid last year, you'd think things should have settled down, but a couple months later I managed to pinch a nerve in my back/shoulder area and it was one of the most painful things I've ever done to myself!   In September Dave was working in the hot sun on the roof and came down feeling unwell.  By the next day, he was in the ER diagnosed with a stroke.  Stressful and scary, but he has made a good recovery.  As he was leaving the hospital to come home, I was in the ER with an attack of diverticulitis! 

Needless to say, work on the house skidded to a halt for a couple months, though a lovely pastor friend and neighbor guys put the roofing on for us; drying the house/addition in for the Winter season.  About the time Dave was making a good recovery, we all came down with Covid once again - probably the Omicron variety as it was still nasty, but much shorter in duration and not quite as awful.  Added to the chronic health issues we already have, it made for a year of keeping quiet and close to home most of the time. 

In between some of these events, my two oldest (and dearest) milk goats died (a couple months apart).  So sad, these girls had been with us for 13 or 14 years and I still miss them.  Paxton and Maryanne - I'll always remember your quirky personalities and miss you.

Ok, now that we've got all THAT out of the way - do you forgive me for not feeling like posting?  I try to keep my blog happy and not post all the cares of life here, but I didn't feel much like posting during all the stressful times and I wanted to tell why I hadn't.  Don't get me wrong - God is good, all the time and brought us through and we've enjoyed many blessings, even during the not-so-great times.

Our house/addition project is now progressing nicely - the framing is complete and the electrical is almost done, as well.  I can hardly WAIT!  In anticipation (because I'm impatient like that) I picked out light fixtures and bought them.....and have no place to put them yet, so we stacked them in the pumphouse!   The pumphouse is now NOT filled with rats as it had previously been and is completely clean, dry and new inside.  AND Dave has lovely shelves built in there for my canning jars!!!   However, now I keep adding more 'temporarily stored' things in there!  Just for good measure, I've got a couple of rubber rats in there, just to keep us humble and thankful!

The only room yet un-electrified in the addition project is the bathroom.  No, let me say that again....OUR bathroom.  SUCH a happy thought!   Our own bathroom once again!  I CAN hardly wait.

AND he's put a bazillion plug-ins and special bright ceiling lights all over the new sewing room so I'll be able to craft away the hours in well-lit happiness!!  I can HARDLY wait!

In case I used to take our big house for granted, living in 700 sq ft and then 900 sq ft has made me appreciate every thought of each new room we'll have.  I CAN HARDLY WAIT.  

I would love to say I never complain, but I cannot tell a lie....I do complain.    Probably even in a whiney tone occasionally!  Sigh.  I can hardly wait.  Did I mention that?

I carefully wrote the due dates of our remaining two milk goats on my calendar.....apparently the WRONG due dates, as daughter came to the house to let me know that we had TWINS on the ground!  So much for my book-keeping abilities.  We named them Vincent and Mirabella and I started milking Magda twice a day.

 Just to keep it going, a week later, Shinar produced Shantilly.  I've got them both on a once-a-day milking schedule now and we are all doing well; me, the milkers and the goat kiddies!  Dave did get power and water to the barn, so I have a lovely milk room with hot, running water.  

When we were still despairing of the number of rats in the pumphouse, we managed to acquire a herd of barn kitties.  Milking time is a fiesta, with Oberan, Titania, Puck, Mab, and Cuckoo all milling about begging me to hurry up with their warm breakfast milk!   I love my farm and go out to milk as soon as it gets light in the mornings.  I like the quiet opportunity to thank the Lord for the good things we enjoy, including my sweet goats, and to pray for needs that pop into my head while I'm sitting there.

I've been working hard on my primitives and selling them in my Etsy store & starting to resell items on Ebay to help out with life expenses.  I'm still raising English Lop bunnies and have just recently been working on raising New Zealand meat rabbits again.  We like rabbit meat and I will can it, as well.  

Today, in the actual sunshine, Dave worked in the garden, starting to get ready for Spring while I worked over an old rabbit cage, putting a new floor and new doors on it.  No doubt tomorrow morning's milking chores will be just a bit tougher after all the wire-cutting and plier-pinching I did today!

I'm enjoying being Grammy Pammy to the little ones - there's nothing quite as heartwarming as a little boy who snuggles up to you and says quietly...."I love you Grammy Pammy!"   Life doesn't get any better than that!

Well, I've caught myself up to date a bit, so I'll sign off for now.   We had homemade Chicken Potpie for supper and Lemon-Iced Apple Pie for dessert, so I'm done cooking for today!  I've got faces to put on Cinnamon Bunns (primitives in my Etsy store - link in the side column if you're curious) as I've got EIGHT orders of them to fill!  For some reason, they have been amazingly popular!  You just never know what's going to be 'the thing'!  Last time I really had my store going, it was primitive Pigs that were my bestseller!

Until next time.....I'll finish up with a zillion pics in no particular order of life since I posted last.

Cherish every day the Lord grants you - and Philipians 4:8, for goodness sake!!!

Grammy Pammy 

Life on the Farm is anything but 'laid back'!

You know in the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie how the little girl named Violet turns into a GIANT blueberry?  Well, if this pandemic and snowy weather keeps up, that'll be me.  Not blue, just GIANT, lol!

I 'joined' a Cast Iron Cooking Facebook group.  OH MY WORD.  Those people do nothing but post mouth-watering dishes in their hardy iron pans!  The latest thing I saw was to make your regular baking powder biscuits, but melt a CUBE of butter in your cast iron skillet, float your lil ole biscuits on top of it and bake 'em!  If you don't see any more posts from me, it's not because I'm lazy or rarely post, it'll be because I've died and gone to Heaven, eating BISCUITS!

I can't try them today, though, because I already have Enchiladas and Maple Bacon Chicken tenders in the oven, lol.  I confess that I was considering a pan of Sin-amon Rolls, too. Good thing I don't own a bathroom scale.  Hmm.  Better take down the mirror while I'm thinking of it!

Hope ya'll are surviving Winter, snow, Covid and all the other trials and tribulations of this life.  If you've read the ending (Revelation) and believe it, you can rest easy.  It all works out in the end....

We've had a foot of snow here in our corner of the Pacific Northwest.  First thing right off, our water froze up.  Got that fixed up.  Of course the goats thought it was the prime time to produce their offspring for the season, so we sat in the half-finished, breezy, snowflake filled barn milking and bottle feeding stubborn little goat kids.

I took a tumble on the icy trail behind the barn and wondered how long it would take before anyone at the house noticed I was gone.....but thankfully wasn't really hurt (but boy-oh-boy do I have some SORE muscles!).  On the other hand, they would have noticed in another hour or so - after all, who else is gonna fix breakfast??

My 'temporary' greenhouse suffered a collapsed roof.  Now instead of imagining that I'm soon going to be sowing little cool weather seed crops, I'm going to have to do some major repairs on the roof first.  Sigh. It's always something, seems like. 

On a brighter note, I LOVE the snow.  As soon as we had a good 6 or 7" going, I went right out to make the required snow angel.  After there was a foot of it, I trudged up to the back 40 (okay, 18, but who's counting?) to look for animal tracks.  Only rabbits, squirrels, rats, mice and birds so far.  It was absolutely beautiful, however and I enjoyed my walk.  My squirrel feeder has been a wild party ground of grey squirrels and birds of all sorts.  Chickadees, Steller's Jays, Juncos, Towhees, Thrushes and an occasional Flicker.  The Robins fly here and there, but don't care for the menu offered.  The squirrels and birds don't seem to mind sharing with each other and it's great entertainment watching them all while I'm doing dishes. 

Today, all the beautiful magic is melting, as is common here in the Puget Sound.  Slush and sprinkles are the name of the game today.  By tomorrow, we should be able to get out of our driveway just fine if we wanted to.  

We had great intentions of being actually ready for the goat kidding this year.  Running water, hot water tank, electricity and lights were going to be all in and working wonderfully.  Well........did I mention Dave is working on that now and we've been sort of...winging it with long extensions cords, buckets of warm water and carrying a lot of stuff to and fro?  Ah, well, all in good time.  Maybe next year's kidding will look a lot different!

Of course, working on the barn means we are NOT working on the house, so things are at a standstill until the milk room is under control.  And that's the way we roll.  We are developing patience and character.  Right?  I did read a quote by Mark Lowery (Christian singer and comedian) where he said that this life here is boot camp for Heaven.  I think that pretty well sums it up.  On that note, I'm getting back to work now.  Wonder if those Sin-amon Rolls are going to count against me......