It was an unusually uneventful week. We planned it that way, hoping to have some downtime to recreate a bit. We celebrated our mom’s birthday this week, and we hoped to indulge in a few extra hours of working on our family tree or sitting in the creek. Instead, we ended up oddly busy cooking and cleaning — which tends to happen whenever we try to rest. Part of the reason was dealing with sick people this week, which slowed down the house in general. But partly, we just tend to be busy even when we try not to be.
One reason we were busier than intended was choosing more labor intensive meals than our usual fare. We’ve been eating a more anti-inflammatory paleo/Mediterranean diet this week. We tend to eat very clean in general, but the busy summer had ushered in a few bad habits — like relying on lunchmeat rather than prepping grilled chicken, or using store-bought mayo instead of olive-oil based homemade. Tightening waistbands all around encouraged us to make time for healthier meals, even if that means we are a tad less productive. Several in our family struggle with autoimmune and dietary issues, and everyone seems to be feeling a bit better already.
Our garden is officially slowing down. We are still getting enough squash to eat it for dinner more than we want to, and I suppose that’s a good thing. Grace and I picked most of our pumpkins yesterday, though it’s a rather small harvest this year due (I think) to all the cucumber beetles. Even though it doesn’t feel like fall yet, it’s fun seeing the cheerful orange pumpkins on our porch.
We still have Bonnie-Jean’s pup — she seems to grow in sweetness daily. She is officially ready to find her new home, having completed her vet check this week. We’ve been advertising, so we hope the right family will find her soon.
Archery season started this week for deer and turkey, so our brother Jeremiah has been heading out almost every morning to try his luck. In preparation for needing more room in our freezer, he decided to purchase an electric meat grinder to turn last years venison into burger. We had several large cuts still in the freezer taking up more space than we really have, so this was a great choice. Jeremiah chunked up all the meat with some help from our dad and our niece Chloe, who can’t wait to get out to the deer stand herself later this fall. I cleaned the new grinder and helped move tubs of meat in and out of the freezer to keep everything cool. It was a fun family project, even if it was a bit messy! When Jeremiah finally started feeding the venison into the grinder (along with some beef fat), we were impressed with how quickly it worked. The directions said to grind the meat twice, starting with a larger size and going smaller. Once the meat was done, my nieces and I portioned it up and packaged it. We ended up with about 20 pounds of ground venison, which is amazing. And thank goodness, it is so much more compact than on the bone.
After all that work, we had to turn some of the venison into burgers right away. A lot of our family doesn’t really care for venison, so we only prepped six patties to go with some chicken for dinner. When we sampled the finished product, though, even somewhat squeamish people (like myself) were impressed. While I opted for my typical chicken breast, the burgers all got eaten right up. We declared it a success.
Even though we were busy this week, we did slow down enough to celebrate our mom’s birthday on Friday. Our mom tends to be too low-maintenance for her own good, and I had hoped to make this birthday really special since the last couple were during unusually crazy seasons. Unfortunately, Bonnie and I both had migraines, so that put a damper on some of our plans. Thankfully, we were still able to spoil our mom a bit and spend some quality time with her. She opted for a quite day watching a TV show together while all the guys were all at work. We sisters made her a sugar-free cheesecake, as well as potato skins — a whole-foods splurge that wasn’t entirely off of our diet.
For being uneventful, this week left me tired. I think a lot of it is the heat — we are all over it. And hopefully, so is the weather. Right now, the forecast shows highs in the 70s starting Monday. It seems too good to be true, but it does have to happen at some point. I know we will still be looking at some hot days in September and October, but I sure hope we are done with these near 100s temps. I’m ready to enjoy the outdoors again, to make progress on all the projects the heat has slowed down. I’m ready for cool mornings, mulled tea, and a bit of flannel now and then. Thank goodness, autumn is just two days away.
