It rained this week. Multiple times. And oh — did we need it. I’ve never seen the shrubs in our woods shrivel up before, but the unseasonable heat and dry weather had left everything dry, wilted, and crunchy. When the first round of rain sprinkled over us last Sunday evening, several of us literally danced around the house. And each round of rain we’ve had since then has felt like a gift.
After a mostly restful Labor Day Monday (even on holidays, there is always plenty of cooking and cleaning to do), we enjoyed a productive week that felt delightfully normal. Our routines were varied and interesting, and we all felt particularly satisfied at the end of the week.
One thing we changed is the way we divide our housework. With so many adults living together, we’ve worked hard to find a way for us to all “get along.” While we are a close family (we couldn’t do this if we weren’t) — we have quite the array of personalities, energy levels, and work habits. We’ve learned that everyone simply “doing their share” doesn’t work in practice. We’ve tried shared schedules of various types over the last few years. We’ve tried having one or two people responsible for all the housework, while others were assigned outdoor/construction jobs. Some of these divisions of labor have worked better than others.
With so many different needs in our home right now, we decided to divide up the household tasks by person, so everyone can get their own jobs done whenever it works best for them. After one day, we were amazed at how much smoother things were running around the homestead.
Bonnie-Jean still spends a lot of time watching over Tilde’s puppy, who we have been calling Carmel. She is quite the smart pup. At eight-weeks-old, she is pretty much potty trained to our kennel. Bonnie-Jean has also been working on crate training her. She is so sweet and our whole family loves her. She very much needs to find her new home before we get more attached. We wish we could keep her, but we have too many dogs already.
Grace and I still start most days in the garden together. Thanks to all the rain this week, we didn’t have to water as much as we have been. Cucumber beetles have become a major nuisance in our garden, and sadly they destroyed our cucumbers and most of our melons. We had already gotten a large harvest from both, so we aren’t overly disappointed, but we plan to treat with neem oil more often next year to prevent the beetles. Since we had less plant care this week, we took some time to weed our pumpkin patch. I helped a bit one day, but Grace got a lot done herself the next.
Along with beetle issues, we’ve had rodents routinely raiding our mini-pumpkins. We invested in some heavy duty mouse and rat traps, and we’ve been catching big, fat voles and the occasional mouse almost daily. Our Jack Russell Terrier Dolly has been helping a lot as well, often catching rodents on her own. She doesn’t understand why we don’t let her have the ones we catch in traps, opting to take them in buckets to dispose of them out in the woods. She has also taken to checking our larger bucket traps on her own sometimes — and getting caught in the lids on occasion.
Our summer squash and tomato harvest have been slowing down, though we are still getting both daily. We had more melons than we could eat for the last two weeks, but those are about done now as well. We started getting ornamental pumpkins and gourds a couple weeks ago, and recently picked our first sugar pie pumpkin.
We are finally getting a lot of peppers, so much so we decided to do some canning this week. Grace and I spent all Thursday afternoon packing pickled jalapeños and serrano peppers into jars. We opted to slice both and cover with a simple brine. Unfortunately, we had the same issue we had last year — our canning jars kept breaking when we dipped them into the boiling water bath. In all my years canning, I’ve never struggled as much as I have lately with breaking jars. It was disheartening, as we broke three of the sixteen pints we prepped. We kept having to dump out our boiling water, clean up glass, and start over. It turned a simple process into a long, arduous task. We agreed we are purchasing new jars before trying again.
Aside from helping with the garden, I worked on flooring for the rest of my brother Levi’s suite. We had stained the plywood plank boards a couple weeks ago, then got busy with other things. On Friday, I applied a couple coats of polyurethane to the boards. We installed the flooring in his kids’ space yesterday afternoon. It was the final area of subfloor to cover, which feels so good.
The cooler mornings made it easier for us to use our oven this week. I decided to experiment with the slow-rise sourdough recipe I’ve been using, adjusting it to use whole wheat flour instead of white. I read a couple blogs on how to make the switch — adding additional water to the recipe and doing a few more stretch-and-fold sessions. I made just one experimental loaf, but I was pleased with the results. It isn’t as fluffy as white sourdough, but it isn’t too dense either. It is healthier, which is the goal.
On an unhealthy note, we whipped up a batch of our favorite pumpkin muffins on Saturday, since it felt like fall.
It’s late Saturday evening as I am finishing this post, and the windows are all open. With all the heat we’ve had this month, we’ve spent more nights than not shut up with stale conditioned air. While we have another round of hot weather coming our way, I am so thankful that we only have another week of summer left. I say this every year, but its always true — autumn is my favorite season. I’m so ready for the cooler weather and dappled trees. I’m excited for later mornings and earlier evenings. I’ve always loved the fall, but these last few years, I feel like I’ve earned the change in seasons. When we drove over Stockton lake on our way to Bolivar yesterday, I was thrilled to see the beginning of our autumn colors. A new season is just around the corner, and I am so ready for it in more ways than one.
