Weekly Update: 8.10.24
There is an inverse correlation between our homestead morale and the heat. The lower the temperature, the happier we seem to be. This is true of the humans as well as our dogs -- especially Tilde and Dagger, whose fluffy coats make them more adapted to the cold than the heat. On hot days, Bonnie-Jean usually takes them to our spring in the afternoon, where they can play in the cold water.
The cooler weather this week brightened all of our days. We've enjoyed steaming hot cups of coffee and tea once again, even while the warm, green afternoons remind us that autumn is well over a month away. And who is ready for fall anyway, when summer can be so lovely?
Bonnie-Jean, Erin, and our nieces have spent hours daily in our garden, pulling bugs off plants, weeding, and spraying neem oil. They harvest buckets of produce as fast as we can eat it.
This week, Bonnie-Jean worked on some light preservation, as we really aren't set up for canning. She made several batches of refrigerator pickled peppers and green tomato relish. We've been eating peppers with everything -- from pasta dishes to snacks of cucumbers and cheese. We have yet to get any tomatoes, but when those start, I fear we'll eat nothing else for a month.
In an effort to keep our diet well-rounded, we've been incorporating a few Mediterranean recipes over the last weeks. We typically eat low-carb and nearly gluten free, but we've enjoyed a couple meals of whole-wheat pasta, as well of plenty of seasoned vegetables. It's been a delicious change.
Jeremiah bought a bread maker a few weeks ago with the understanding that, if he funded it, his mom and sisters would use it. In the past, we made most of our bread from scratch -- but this hasn't been possible without an oven. So, over the last weeks, we've been experimenting. We've had bread machines before, so I'm somewhat used to how they work. Finding a good one has been an adventure that will get a post of it's own, but after some experimentation, we are enjoying the machine we chose. We've made oat bread, as well as zucchini bread for a weekend treat. We also have made a couple batches of sourdough, but we haven't quite perfected our recipe yet.
In the bunkhouse, we have continued running our wiring. I had high hopes of finishing our Romex this week, but we actually ran out. We will be picking up more today when we make a trip to Springfield. Drilling for our wiring has continued to be a very slow, tedious process -- despite numerous purchases of drill bits and accessories. Thankfully, we are very close to being done. We are picking up our actual outlets and switches tomorrow. Hopefully, we will be moved on to wiring those by the end of the week.
Most nights this week, we have watched segments of "The Ten Commandments", the classic Charlton Heston film. My nieces and nephews have been studying ancient Egypt in school, and the movie is a fun way to discuss how Biblical history intersects with Egyptian history. I grew up on the movie, but I hadn't seen it in decades. It was a fun backdrop to working on a crochet shawl I started awhile back. As crazy as life is out here, it is amazing how soothing an hour of handwork is.
Strider, Grace's kitten, has continued to flourish, finding his way into all of our hearts. Grace added little platforms around the tent, giving him an easy way to escape if one of the dogs decides to get too rough. We are trying to train him to stay off the the table and counter tops, but so far it is only a work in progress.
When I sat down to write this post, I struggled with knowing what to say. It has been a peaceful, uneventful week. We've worked hard and made steady progress. It is the sort of week that is satisfying, physically and emotionally. Whether we were gardening, washing laundry, running wire, cooking -- or sampling a new recipe -- we found enjoyment. As I crawled into bed one night, I was reminded of a verse from Ecclesiastes.
There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God...
Ecclesiastes 2:24, ESV
