Big Universe, Small World... ©2013-2020

 Bones were added to deep pot and veggies added as well. The pot here contained chard, kale, onions, garlic, bay, oregano, peppers, apples, mushrooms, some other stuff, and bones. :)  After 48 hours on the stove, the liquid was strained and separated from the leftover veggie and bone parts. This was fed to the chickens...recycle, reuse!!  The broth or stock was poured into pint jars.  Each jar was filled - four in all.  Three were placed in the pressure canner. One was refrigerator. These are the three pressure cans of stock or bone broth.

1.  We (child and I) are canning again today...tomato sauce, cabbage, apples, and peaches... 2.  We are making a slow cooked mixed fruit butter to can...yummy!! 3.  I made some Italian dressing tonight to cook the chicken in for dinner... 4.  Charlie has been singing the tune of My Favorite Things from The Sound of Music. Although, in his tune, the cats are farting and the dogs are barking...these are a few of his favorite things. :) 5.  Charlie has tried for about 5 minutes to put Mandy's pressure canner lid on our pressure canner, to see if it will fit... 6.  Tonight, I have to make some homemade barbecue sauce for some pork ribs. :)

M:  missing my children. A:   absolutely not enough time. N:  need to take a nap. I:   ice would be nice...since it's so hot. C:  chocolate: want; canning: need to do. M:  mother and father gave me dishes today.   O:  oh snap, I forgot something again. N:  need to fold the laundry. D:  do I have to wear more than pajamas? A:  all the laundry done? nope, people still live here. Y:  yep, more papers to grade.

my younger son broke and crushed his wrist in may. he had surgery then. now, at the end of the first full week of july, he is in his 5th wrist wrap appliance. he has about another week or so in this current contraption. in the meantime, he went to camp with scouts for a week in june - fully casted and all - and came home with a nasty ingrown toenail. we have had to go to the doctor twice now for this. he is scheduled to have surgery on his toe later this month...he could not swim the entire time of the broke wrist due to the cast and open wound into his bone. now, due to the toe and it being wrapped, he still can't swim. summer is half gone and the typical stuff we would do, we are hindered from doing. all of my younger son's normal activities are not capable of being done...no guitar, no bow practice, no boxing, no fishing, no hatchet throwing, no whittling, no biking, no hiking, no shooting, no no no...even wii playing is limited due to limited range of motion... :/ it has ...

It seems there is always so much to do... Chickens:  A few months ago, a cousin/friend gave us 3 leghorn chicks. The dog killed one and we were left with two. I recently put them in with the bigger chickens. It seems like though we only have 9 chickens, we have 3 small flocks: the tetra tint flock (3), the brown chicken flock (3 americaunas and 1 buff orpington) and then the leghorns (2). My younger son says the buff is multiracial, because she is accepted by the americaunas and the tetras. Funny how we observe our social status situations upon the chickens we have. Odd. :) Since the chicken family grew, Charlie made two new laying boxes from scrap wood of old pallets.     The leghorn chicks are getting bigger and I hope will be laying soon...but, they will have several weeks before this happens.   These chicks are quite confused about the night time routine of their new home. They do not understand that they are supposed to be in the coop at night....

What does a homeschooling mommy do when the child is away and the hubby is at work?!?!?  :) I made a birdbath.  And, then I dropped it. Then I spent the next 2+ hours cleaning up shards from all over the floor of 6 rooms of my house where it all splattered to...  :/ I built a raised bed from wood scraps. The compost was turned to add to the bottom. The chicken coop was swept for nitrogen fodder. Soil was added to the top. Six heirloom variety tomato cuttings that had rooted were planted. Trellises were added.     I played with the dog and she enjoyed the water hose in the heat quite a bit. :) I gathered cucumbers and one zucchini from the gardens.  I canned 6 jars of garlic pickes and 2 pints of dilly beans. Goldfish and algae eaters were added to the rainbarrels.      I had to move the broody chicken to be able to collect the eggs.    All the plants were checked for deer damage. She ate most...

These are pieces of ivy that I am rooting to transplant and pot soon. The green ivy is from a plant I have at home. The purple and green striped leaf ivy is one that was thrown away, discarded, left unwanted. On the trip to Home Depot to buy the rain gutters for the rain barrel project recently, I walked through the garden center. There were two pieces of this striped ivy laying on the concrete flooring. It was somewhat withered. It was left laying to just die. Yes, I understand that the people that work at HD don't have time to be concerned about a few leaves or a simple piece of ivy that falls from a larger plant to the floor. I felt different. I felt compelled to pick it up and save it. The worker saw me and sort of made a face. Anyhow, I brought it home and put it in the jar with my piece of ivy to root as well. I did not know the name of the type of ivy. This past week, I was at a friend's house to gather our produce co-op foods. My friend had some of the same ...