5.19.09

The last few days have been so beautiful ! Bright and sunny but not hot at all. My To Do list for the week has grown smaller. Lots of laundry done and hung to dry. The tiller is fixed at last and tomorrow we'll till up the last of the main garden.

Yesterday I baked 2 loaves of bread, one cinnamon and one regular. They're a box Hawaiian sweet bread for the bread maker. We love the stuff ! I make a box and set it to Dough, split it in half and make two small loaves. This time I made one regular and one cinnamon. For this bread I never let it rise to double, we like it a bit doughy which, when later toasted, makes it very much like biscotti.

Today I got the first strawberries :) there were some last week but some ate them, so i put up a strawberry fence and got enough for some strawberry lemonade or maybe a little strawberry syrup :)



And we still get a bounty of eggs each day :)



Last week I found 4 large grocery inventory books at the recycling center. Every page blank on the back side *~* So I brought them home to use and have been printing a few extra recipes, like how to make Balm of Gilead and recipes for homemade toothpaste and mouthwash.


The goat girls have turned into quite the joy :) and they tell time ! Every morning at around 8:00 they call to go out and every evening at 6:30 they start calling to be put up. I'm sure it helps that they get a bit of sweet feed each night. As the days lengthen we leave them out longer but it takes them a few days to adjust to the different time, soon they'll be calling us at 7:30.

They've also gotten very tame and very trusting :) :) :) I can pet Matilda a lot and Ruby all over her face and head. I was able to get two little collars on them and Nik was able to untie and remove the temporary rope collars. They follow us around everywhere and Matilda tries to stand up on me like a dog (with poop feet *~*), to see what I have. We love them very much :) :) And I can't wait for milk and cheese !

I've gotten a few wonderful gifts lately :) For Mothers day, Nik got me a set of wooden fans and a very fine purse. I have an old wooden fan which I've about worn out and he knew I was looking for others. He got me a set of 5 beautiful, hand carved fans, exactly what i needed :) And the new purse is perfect !

I also got some wonderful gifts from some Homestead.org friends. M sent me very cool snake sheds to use in Juju dolls and a ton of most excellent plant starts.
St Johns Wort
Horehound
Roman Chamomile
Anise Hyssop
Creeping Thyme
Oregano
pink garden phlox

And a while back G sent me some magical little tea envelopes with teas as well, a template so I can make them myself and a lovely herb towel which I now use in the Apothecary.

I'm so very blessed :)