10/18

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10/18

Sick today with a cold.

Cloudy and cool through the morning but mostly sunny and warm with some wind through the afternoon. Supposed to rain soon.

Did the usual chores, watering, got 3 eggs today – both araconas in the big box and Rosy in the little one. Many guineas still sleeping in the trees. Acorns cover the ground up by the coop under the white oaks.

Cleaned Bastian’s stuff out of the girls’ room and put it up on a skid under the barn. Kids’ room loaded with roaches and flies. Cleaned out the truck from camping.

Researching getting dairy goats.

Rachel processed lots of garden food, picked the garden, did all the dishes, etc.

All the blankets and sleeping bags hanging up in the upper story of the barn to air.

Located a guy in Jamestown who may be able to fix the mower cheap.

Artichokes have recovered well after bucket of duck water and dying off in late summer.

Had granola for breakfast, stewed reduced garden tomatoes with crackers for lunch, quesadillas with mustard greens for dinner.


['Rosy' is our Rhode Island Red who is so friendly we thought of putting a chicken diaper on her and letting her spend time inside - she often wanders in when the door is open.

Rachel's convinced the roaches are not roaches but some kind of wild relative. In my opinion if it looks like a roach and scurries like a roach it's a roach. But where they should be most common - the kitchen, where all the food is - there aren't any at all. They're only in the addition and out in boxes in the shed.

The flies sometimes inside become quite abundant. We've got flypaper hanging up in front of most windows. It is considered unsightly, but is very effective at eliminating them. We're used to the flypaper and infinitely prefer the sight of it to flies landing on us.

My favorite meal up here is boiling down garden tomatoes into a thick stew to eat with crackers. It can also be frozen in freezer bags for later use in meals like squash lasagna. The cherry tomatoes become so sweet when boiled down they make a rich aromatic jam.]
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