Frustratedearthmother's Journaling Journey

Yep- It's good that he got through it safe.

I am so thankful that DH came out of it ok! He is accident prone enough without having ladders (or other debris) jumping out at him on the highway, lol. Car is now fixed - they said the alignment was waaaay off. I had driven it a couple days ago and it wanted to swerve all over the road. Not fun or safe...

We were having a pretty good day in town, running errands and just enjoying another day off together when my daughter called in a panic. Her fitness club pulled a YEAR's worth of dues out of her bank account instead of a month's worth. Who does she call for help? Me of course. My daughter is a paralegal and has plenty of lawyers to help her out - and guess who gets nominated, lol. Well, turns out what she really needed was money to tide her over until the refund from the fitness club is back in her account. Guess they never get too old to need ya, huh?

I've got a co-worker coming to pick up milk and kefir in about an hour. Wonder if I can get in a quick nap before she gets here????

Ended the day by catching up a bunch of the Barred Hollands and got them penned up. They are fast and feisty little buggers in the daylight, but after dark they're not so hard to deal with. I got about half of them put up. They're just starting to lay and I need to get them in a pen by themselves so I can get some pure eggs and 'hopefully' sell some for hatching eggs. I'm glad some of the late spring pullets are starting to lay, cuz some of the older gals are starting a serious molt. Lotsa feathers on the ground....ugh.

I've got a guy bringing some square bales in the morning. He already had hay on his trailer, so he's only charging me about $10 for gas because he's not too far away from me. That'll make me feel so much better about having enough hay for the winter. (if we even have a winter - which we didn't last year!) Also, my local Tractor Supply store has the Standlee Alfalfa pellets on sale for $10.46 a 40# bag....that's about a dollar off their regular price. I'll be stocking up on that too. I've got self feeders in the barn that I keep alfalfa pellets in for the milkers. The also get their grain on the milk stand. Any wonder why they are so spoiled???

DH is going to put a gutter up on the shed that will funnel water into a 275 gallon tote. We've already got one of them set up and it's full, but 275 gallons doesn't go very far when you've got a lot of thirsty critters. We've had plenty of rain this year and the pond is full right now, so it's not a big worry. Last year, however, the pond got really, really low and we had a problem with our pump. It had to be replaced - ouch! We have a pretty deep well, so it's a big deal to pull the old one and install a new one. Our first pump lasted over 20 years before it needed to be replaced - the second one only lasted about 4 years. They just don't make 'em like they used to... Thank God, no problems with the pump this year.

I need to pick okra tomorrow and get it in the dehydrator. We love, love, love that stuff. DH calls iit 'coke-ra' because it's so addicting! The folks at his offices beg for the stuff!

I stink, (TMI, huh?) headed for the shower!

rain barrels is one of the HUGE things i want to get set up this fall/winter...im hoping da can come out in october and well mabe get gutters up and then im just going to start adding barrels...after this summer every ounce of water counts!

sounds like a productive day and glad the car issue got figured!

What do you do with your okra when you dehydrate it? How do you serve it?

Coke-ra! Here's how I do it: I slice it a bit thicker than you think you'll need it. Maybe in 1/2 inch rounds....it shrinks quite a bit when dehydrated. I salt it pretty well, and then just dehydrate it until it's crispy, crunchy. We generally just eat it as a snack, even though I'm sure it could be rehydrated in any soup/gumbo recipe that you wanted to use it in. With a diabetic husband we don't even buy chips - this satisfies our craving for crunchy/salty snacks.

Sounds great; thanks!

We'll have to empty our rain barrels soon so they aren't damaged during freeze-up. Never seen or tried okra, not a northern thing.

I can't even imagine having to worry about the water storage tote freezing. We get a few freezes, occasionally a hard freeze - but not often. Long, hard, deep freezes scare me, lol!

Okra is good stuff, especially rolled in cornmeal and fried. We don't serve it that way often, because of the carbs - but we do occasionally enjoy it as a treat.

I had some Sq Bales of hay delivered this morning. It's a nice feeling to have those bales in the barn and the 5 RB's out in the pasture, securely covered up until we need them.

DH worked on the gutter system. He could have finished it but ran out of gutter hangers. We'll pick up some more tomorrow and hopefully finish it up Sunday afternoon.

We're going to his mom's tomorrow. She lives about 2.5 hours away. DH's birthday and her's are both at the end of August, so we'll take her to lunch and have a two-fer celebration. Better late than never! While we're there we'll check and see if there's any little chores that need to be taken care of. She's a spry 80 year old who lives alone and pretty well takes care of herself, but everybody needs a little help now and then.

I canned up 4 qts of chicken/veggie soup today and two qts of chicken broth. This was actually my first time canning anything containing meat, so I was constantly having to go back and read the canning manual. This was also my first time to use my Tattler lids - and I'm happy to say that they all sealed.

Whew - long day and I'm tired...

Another long day. We got up early, did a few chores and headed off to the m-i-l's house. We took her to lunch and watched part of a football game with her before we headed home.

Got home, went out back and fed, milked and gathered eggs. We are supposed to get that cool front finally. Hopefully tomorrow will be wonderful! I go back to work on Monday after my week-long vacation. I'm sure we'll try to finish everything tomorrow that we didn't get done all week.

It's been a hard day. A bit over a month after losing my sister it looks like my b-i-l is already chasing other women. My nephew called me - 24 years old with a child of his own, crying because he can't understand how his step-dad has already seemingly forgotten his mother We haven't even scattered her ashes and this man is hitting the bars every night. He is an alcoholic, so I'm not surprised. Actually, I feel sorry for him, he has no coping skills whatsoever. And while I'm all for people moving on with their lives this is tough. My niece and nephew are so hurt and so angry. I wish I could take their pain away.