Cheaters never prosper...but they do get butter faster.

One of the lovely things about having more milk than we can drink is that I have the guilt-free opportunity to skim off the cream, feed the skimmed milk to the pigs, and make something wonderful. Often, that something is ice cream. I've already written about my problem with ice cream, so I doubt I have to extol the virtues of that option. But lately, I've been making butter.

If you've never tried fresh butter, especially the raw, fresh, deliciously yellow butter from a Jersey cow on grass, you really should. Oh, the sweet, sweet smell. I know the stuff sells for upwards of $10/lb, but if you can find a way to splurge, do it! Or, find a nice source of milk and make your own!

I've made butter before by the good, old jar method. The shake-the-jar-until-your-arms-are-falling-off-and-you-want-to-curse-the-butter method. And that is certainly a fine way to make it. But someone once showed me how to do it using a food processor, and I don't plan on going back. Unless the system collapses and I have to, that is...but then, there will be bigger problems than tired arms. Until then, though, it is so easy...

Add the cream...
Turn that puppy on...
Drain off the buttermilk...
Look at your lovely butter...
Rinse thoroughly with cold water...
Plop it in a butter bell - mine was handmade at Homestead Heritage (or shape and refrigerate or freeze)...

Yum!

We had been planning on not milking through the winter (Thanksgiving would be our quittin' time), and just drying off the cows. But since Caroline calved so late in the year, we won't be doing that. And it's a good thing too, because I really love having milk, butter, and homemade ice cream available. I am truly spoiled!

A little pick of heaven

On Thursday, we went strawberry picking at a local farm. They said Abby was the youngest picker they'd had yet.

What they didn't know was that they should've weighed her before and after...they could've made another 10 dollars or so.


We picked 20 pounds and bought another 10 from their pickings. The prices were so reasonable...$1.00/lb for u-pick, and $.75/lb for their seconds (what didn't make it into their official farm sales containers).

I've been processing strawberries ever since. Besides the strawberry yogurt, strawberry tart, and just plain fresh strawberries, I've frozen a bunch and also made 21 jars of strawberry jam.The jam looks dark because of the Rapadura sugar I use.

I'm pretty sure that Abby decided right then and there that she must be in heaven. She at least decided that she had never in her life had such a good time.

Say cheese.

No, this is not going to be a post about cameras. It will be about the gluttonous amount of cheese I ate over the weekend. But, I have an excuse. I really do.

We spent the last week & a half on a road trip to Texas. It was our first time to leave the house (save for my trip to the hospital for Abby's birth) for even an overnight since moving here. We left the farm and all the animals in the charge of our dear friends, the S family, and headed off. And, incidentally, the only problem while we were gone was that a 94-mph wind picked up our pig house and threw it over the fence. Gotta love these prairie breezes.

We left home on Saturday the 7th and made a few stops to visit friends from our past along the way, arriving at Homestead Heritage on Monday the 9th. Our excuse to come was to take a few classes on cheese-making on the 13th & 14th, but our early arrival allowed us to take advantage of the time by getting to better know the community and learning about their way of life. It was a fabulous time that definitely deserves a post of its own. So, for now, I'll just talk about the cheese.

Cheese. I have never eaten so much of it in 2 days in my life before. We made, and tasted, butter, cream cheese, sour cream, yogurt, labaneh, cottage cheese, feta, ricotta, mozzarella, creme fraiche, pepper jack, colby jack, cheddar, parmesan, gouda, and brie. Of course, anyone who knows anything about cheeses will realize that it would be impossible to both make and eat some of those in 2-days time. The cheeses that needed to age will be tasted by future classes, and we tasted cheese from a past class.

The wonderful part is that I feel confident that I can make any of those cheeses. And, my neighbor is thrilled to glean that information from me. She'll be the first of us with milk this spring, so she will host a little cheese workshop by providing the milk while I provide the know-how. Yes, I could've gotten the info off the internet for free. But, having someone standing there with you to tell you if the curds look right or if the mozzarella is ready to stretch is so worth the cost of the class.

After the first day, I took home the herbed cheese roll that I made and set it out for dinner. Meagan consumed about half of it, all the while raving and saying how I needed to make it again and again. I think I have my first cheese fan.

Enjoying the harvest

We had to buy a second freezer. It is a good problem to have.

You see, over the summer, we raised about 125 chickens for meat and though they did not all make it to the freezer (we had trouble with the Cornish X Rocks), we still had lots and lots of birds that did. And my freezer was getting full. In fact, we had another 25 birds or so to do and I had absolutely no room. I was cooking them one right after another in my 2 crockpots, trying to save room since they take up less room cooked and deboned, but it just wasn't making enough of a dent.

So, we bought another freezer. A big one. Twenty-five cubic feet. We didn't mess around. And it is a good thing too, because we now have 2 nearly full freezers.

Mr. Big Boy, our 500 pound boar, took a little trip to the meat locker a few weeks ago and came home in 6 large bags full of nice little paper-wrapped packages. He filled up the smaller freezer completely on his own, with overflow into the other one. We were a little concerned about "boar taint." You see, it seems that boar meat can sometimes carry an "off" flavor because of the raging hormones in a boar. But, if it is there, it is faint. Faint enough that with some spices, you don't notice a thing. I wouldn't sell the meat, but for us, it's fine.

And then there are the rabbits. We've been steadily adding more and more rabbit to our freezer as well. I finally got up the nerve to cook a couple up yesterday and so last night, we had rabbit nachos! Not something you'd see on a menu, I'm guessing. But it was good. Just like chicken, and I'm not just saying that. We are having rabbit spaghetti today for lunch (rabbit in sauce over cooked spaghetti squash). I'm still not convinced that I want to continue to raise rabbits for meat. The processing is just not nearly as easy as chickens for us. But, while we've got them, what else are we going to do? I mean, the suckers multiply like...rabbits! And there are only so many people in small-town USA that need a pet rabbit. Believe me. We've tried.

It is nice to know that you have hundreds of pounds of meat in the basement, all from animals you raised yourself. I haven't bought meat from the grocery store in a long, long time. Of course, I'm getting short on beef (our last beef came from buying a half from another farm) and I'm starting to wonder how long it will be before Burt can take a trip to the meat locker, too. Until then, I do have plenty of chicken, pork and rabbit (and even some deer that was gifted to us) to keep us quite fed and happy.

My missing piece

Ever read the Shel Silverstein book titled that? Well, I don't think this is what he was talking about.

A couple of nights ago, I was busy making dinner for some friends we were having over. I was a little late getting started. You know, you should never cook in a big hurry. And, you should never, ever use a Pampered Chef Ultimate Slice N Grate (a mandoline) when in a hurry. And, you should never, ever, EVER use one in a hurry without the hand guard.

Okay, so you probably see where this is going, right?

My hand slipped and before I knew it, my thumb was skinnier. And bleeding profusely.

I retrieved my hunk of thumb from the other side of the slicer, for two reasons. One, I wanted to eventually have a whole thumb again, and two, I didn't think it would add to my casserole any.

I've now had it held together with bandages for a few days and it does, indeed, look as if it will reattach just fine. Lesson learned though. Time to find a new way to slice food. I like to keep all my fingers intact.

*Photo courtesy of The Pampered Chef, Ltd.

Puttin' it by

There is a certain magic in transforming this...
to this...
Of course, I had hoped that the work involved would yield a few more quarts, but I'll take what I can get. I did have help, though, which is always nice. In addition to the kids, Don's mom joined the assembly line of blanching, peeling, seeding (for a few of the quarts), chopping, and then jarring and boiling.

As you probably noticed in the first picture, most of the tomatoes were very small. Somehow, I bought seeds for those small tomatoes when in reality, that was the last thing I wanted. If you'll remember, we aren't too fond of raw tomatoes in this family. Which means I needed to can those. And if you've ever done that before, you'll know that small tomatoes just mean that you get less yield for your work in canning. The tomato still needs to be peeled, no matter how small. Our peeling efforts, then, resulted in much less tomato to chop than we we would have had after peeling large tomatoes. Oh well. Live and learn, right?

Abby had to get in on the action.
Of course, we did remove her before boiling.

Canning has been just one more thing in the long list of "things I've never done before but do now" since moving to the farm. I must say that it is satisfying. Seven quarts down and more to go.

I do have one question: Why is it called canning if you put it in jars? Shouldn't it be jarring?

Garlic: wards off colds AND vampires

I woke up in the middle of the night last night feeling the beginnings of a miserable cold. Head, throat, ear, and sinus pain and general yuckiness. I got up and decided to fight that cold with all I've got. I swallowed a smashed garlic clove, chased with yogurt, took a mega Vitamin C capsule and an Echinacea, and drank a glass of water. Back to bed I went, feeling like I was trying to ward off vampires. I guess it's better than morning breath, but man, that's some strong smell. When morning came, I repeated the process and after breakfast, went back to bed for a little bit. I am happy to report that I'm feeling much, much better. I think I'm kicking this bug. But, actually, I'm much more concerned about Abby getting it. There is nothing worse than a sick baby. I just hate it when little ones can't breathe clearly. So far, she's doing fine.

What is funny is that I just yesterday saw a cute tutorial by the daughter of the lady on one of the blogs I normally read. She was instructing on the way to take garlic. Very cute. I will say that the first time I tried garlic as a sickness preventative, I just popped a clove in my mouth and started chewing. Wowzers! That was a kick. Taking it pre-chewed, so to speak, is much better. It still burns a bit, but it gets it out of your mouth much more quickly. Then you just have to watch out for the inevitable garlic burps.

Fancy Scratch Grains

We've been eating a lot of oatmeal this winter because we are unable to get eggs (the farm we were getting them from doesn't sell them in the winter due to low production and our hens aren't laying yet) and I have to pay too much for milk right now to make yogurt. We will occasionally eat a breakfast of fruit and toast or pancakes or waffles, but these don't fill us up like oatmeal. Anyway, it is our first real brush with eating seasonally and though I enjoy it, it does present a challenge. How does one make meals interesting when your choices are limited?

Well, I attempted to meet that challenge by incorporating other grains into the oatmeal. Since I have a grain mill and crack my own oats (my version of steel-cut), I can easily throw in another grain. My first experiment was adding some barley. No one even noticed. Which in some ways is good...at least they didn't reject it! I decided, however, that I was going to make them notice next time. So, my next experiment was to add spelt, kamut, barley, millet, and flax seeds to the oats. This, they noticed. In fact, Caleb said it looked just like the fancy scratch grains we feed the chickens.

Who's Hungry???

I think the most tedious part about homemaking is making the meals. It has to be done every day, at least three times a day, and you can never say, "Oh, I'll just leave that to tomorrow." In fact, you can't even leave it for later. Especially not around here.

I live in a family of eaters. Caleb eats like a growing teenager. Meagan can hold her own. Neither Don or I are shy when it comes to food either. And, of course, you can see with the chubby cheeks on Abby, she's not missing meals either. I hear about these people who "forget" to eat...this is something we simply cannot comprehend. We eat 3 good meals a day and usually 2 snacks as well. And, we are notorious for eating early lunches and dinners because we simply cannot wait any longer.

Yesterday, in fact, due to a little snafu in the kitchen which left me with pizza crust being ready way too early, we ate dinner at 3:30. That happened to be a record, but when I called the kids to the table, neither of them batted an eye. We were all hungry. Of course, that left us ready to eat again by 6:30, so we had popcorn and then Caleb ate a third of a cantaloupe at 7:30.

With all this eating around here, I often feel like food prep/food service is all I do. Of course, feeding Abby for 30 minutes out of every 3 hours or so doesn't help that feeling go away. I feel like I'm either feeding her, cooking a meal, planning for a meal, prepping for a meal, shopping for a meal, cleaning up after a meal or eating a meal for every second of every day.

I do understand that a lot of it is due to my choices. If I bottle-fed, I could pass Abby off to someone else to feed. If I bought loaves of bread, pizza crusts, cold cereal, dinner in a box, canned soup, etc., instead of making things from scratch, a lot of time would be freed up. But, that wouldn't be best for my family. So, I do what I do. Don't get me wrong...I'm not complaining. I love staying home and this is my work. But, at the end of the day, sometimes I wish there was something more tangible to point to and say, "This is what I did today." Instead, I have dishes drying in the rack and a refrigerator that is a little more empty. But, I guess what I also have is a family that is fed and cared for...one day at a time. And tomorrow, I'll do it all over again.

Now, it's time to start thinking about dinner.

More randomness

I think I've lost some precious brain cells in this new-(again)-motherhood stage because I can't seem to form a thought long enough to post lately. But, alas, I will try. And, if I can't get one long thought out, I'll go for several short thoughts.

We have gotten another several inches of snow and it is still coming down. It's beautiful, but boy, was I hoping that it would melt and go away before getting his again. Not for me, but for the chickens. They just will not come out of the coop in the snow and it is really starting to get foul in there. 75 birds in a relatively small building makes for a LOT of poo. We keep putting down more bedding, but honestly, it reeks in there. I was really hoping they could go outside again for a while. But, it looks like that isn't going to happen anytime soon. It is probably a good thing that we will be butchering about 15 of the roosters within the next week. That'll help a little. It'll also stock my freezer some.

I haven't blogged about this yet because I just don't know quite what to say, but I met my half-brother B last Saturday. He was very nice and the kids talked a lot about how much they liked him after he left. His girlfriend, T, came as well and she was lovely and sweet. We talked some about our past and where we are today. We shared some pictures and he went sledding with the kids. I don't really know where we go from here, but it is a start and we'll figure it out as we go along.

Don's folks will be arriving in just 3 days. Unfortunately, the basement, where they will be staying, is completely full of kitchen cabinets and our kitchen is half torn apart. I could easily feel a little stressed about their coming and Christmas being so close, but I like to take up the battle cry of Scarlet O'Hara...I'll think about that tomorrow. Which is why I still haven't finished all the Christmas gifts and I haven't even unpacked the stockings. And why I probably will be sending Valentine's cards instead of Christmas cards this year. And why I'm sitting here blogging instead of getting any of the above done.

Ever since Abby was born, I've been ravenously hungry. All the time. I remember this happening with Caleb as well. Not so much with Meagan, but that's beside the point. I can hardly go any time at all without eating something. Here's an example of a typical evening...dinner at 5pm, popcorn (where I eat at least twice as much as Caleb) at 6:30pm, a glass of chocolate milk and a handful of nuts at 8pm, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at 9:30pm. It's a good thing I go to bed at 10:30, or I'd have to eat some more.

Well, as fun as it's been, I'm a little concerned that all this eating is going to make losing this baby fat all the more hard. Of course, that doesn't stop me. I don't think anything short of an empty refrigerator could stop me. And, in honor of my gluttony, we are going to make Christmas cookies this afternoon. I found a recipe for whole wheat sugar cookies on the Sonlight forums that sound delicious. I'll post the recipe later if they turn out to be as good as they sound.

Well, it's been nearly 30 minutes since I had a waffle and an orange, so it's time to start thinking about lunch! I'll entertain you with all the ultra-fascinating aspects of my life again soon, I promise. Or is that a threat?? Don't answer that.

Random Randomness

First off, I'll answer the important questions...
1. Yes, I'm still pregnant.
2. No, I don't know when this baby is coming.
3. No, I don't know what she's waiting for.
4. Yes, I'm very uncomfortable.
5. Yes, I will try to post when something happens, but...
6. No, if I don't post, that doesn't mean baby's here! (I made at least one person think that by not posting yesterday!)
I have informed Don that I am officially a watched pot. And, as I told my good friend, A, I just ain't boiling yet!

Second, Caleb has started a blog! If you'll look to the right at my list of blogs, you'll see a new addition...FarmBoy. That's him! He has lots of ideas of things to write about. (He's desperate to tell his version of the plumber story!) He'll also be putting up some of his writing assignments for school, as he has already been typing them on the computer. He's very excited. Now, when you visit, you may notice that his "About Me" says that he has 2 sisters. Yes, we jumped the gun a little, but I just figured it'll change so soon, that it'd be ok. No, you haven't missed the announcement! Go take a look & leave a comment...it'll make his day!

Third, I made my first-ever batch of whey! I was a little unsure of what I was looking for, but it seems to have turned out just fine. Now, I can make more of those Nourishing Traditions recipes. I've also broken out my yogurt maker & hope to get some yogurt (for starter) to get that going soon. Of course, I also hope to go into labor soon, and if that prevents me from going to the store, I won't complain!!

Fourth, the roof is on the garage! Don (with the help of a couple of the neighbor kids) got the last of the sheeting up. Tomorrow, he hopes to get the ends (ladder-like pieces that create the overhang on both sides) and the fascia up and then start papering and shingling. It's pretty cool to see it coming together. I'll try to snap some pictures tomorrow, but again, if labor prevents me, I won't complain!!

And fifth, the chickens are now very comfortable outdoors. When Don and Caleb open the coop in the morning, they rush out. They've also moved from huddling close to the coop to exploring the entire area. And, Chief Wahoo has gotten in a few times but has left them alone. She's decided they are too big. Once, we even found her asleep inside the coop when the wind was bad. I cannot tell you how relieved I am that she isn't a threat to them. I'll try to get some pictures of them in their yard tomorrow as well, but...well, you know.

Post-birth Freezer Inventory

For your perusal, my freezer inventory:
-2 meals chili
-3 meatloaves
-11 dozen meatballs (5-6 meals)
-1 beef & potato casserole
-1 lasagna (2 meals)
-2 spaghetti pies
-1 breakfast casserole (probably 2 meals)
-2 meals tortilla soup
-1 loaf zucchini bread

See, I can get things done when I get motivated!

I only have chicken & rice soup left to make, but truth be told, I think I just may wait to throw those ingredients into the pot when I start labor. I know I'll want something to eat, and that seems like a good thing to put in my tummy at that time. Of course, if it doesn't happen sooner rather than later, I'll probably just pre-cook it anyway, or the ingredients may disappear.

Anyway, I'm pretty happy with the outcome. I haven't cooked that much in such a short time since I used to do once-a-month-cooking. It's satisfying to know that there is so much easy food to eat. Meagan is upset because she LOVES spaghetti pie and doesn't see why we can't just eat it now. Oh well, I guess she's learning delayed gratification.

The stockpiling begins

Up until today, the extent of my frozen "assets" (aka easy, frozen meals that anyone in the family can throw in the oven for dinner, especially after the baby's arrival) consisted of 1 loaf of zucchini bread. That would've really tided us over, eh?

Well, today, we sought to begin to increase those assets. We took 8 pounds of that beef I bought the other day and are in the middle of turning it into 3 meatloaves and oodles of meatballs. The meatloaves are cooking right now and the meatballs will be formed and cooked as the oven becomes available.

We had three cooks in the kitchen. In the woefully inadequate kitchen. It's not small. Don't get me wrong. But there is so little counter space that I have to use the stove top as counter space and that drives Don crazy. Something about flammables on the stove top. I don't know...he's so overly cautious. There is actually a good 6 feet of counter space across the kitchen, but since it is about 10 feet away from the sink and oven and everything else, it's not very usable. Plus, it's covered in junk that hasn't found a home yet. So, hopefully, sooner rather than later, you'll be seeing a post on our kitchen remodel. I've been working on the details for a while now and after the garage is done, and we have some bookshelves for our books, that is next on the list. It will include a beautiful island with 7 extra feet of counter space! But, that is another post, obviously!

So, 3 cooks in the kitchen. At one point, Caleb was cracking and beating eggs in one spot, Meagan was stirring in ingredients in another, and I had a cutting board balanced over the sink chopping vegetables. It was quite a sight. In addition to the meatball/meatloaf extravaganza, we were also throwing together a crock-pot dinner for tonight. (stew meat, potatoes, onions, carrots and rice with a tomato juice sauce)

I still have plans to make 2 lasagnas, 3 meals worth of chicken tortilla soup, 2 meals of chicken noodle soup, a couple of "Spaghetti Pies", and a breakfast casserole. Hang in there, Abby, just a little while longer! This is one time your mama has procrastinated and needs a bit more time!

Milk, it does the body good!

I have been without milk now since we left Arizona. We guzzled the last of our raw milk there as we were checking out of our hotel. I've come to the point that I no longer just think whole, raw milk is superior, but I feel that pasteurized, homogenized, and commercially produced milk is downright bad. Yes, there are organics in the grocery store, but they are still just full of dead milk. And with what I've learned about many big-name organics, I don't trust them to be much better than a conventional dairy. Those cows need to be on pasture, not standing around in a fenced-in pit of their own filth!

Anyway, so we've been without milk since September 14th. And I've really been starting to feel it...can you believe that my fingernails have gotten weaker??? They are breaking and splitting constantly. But, we've finally found a raw milk source & boy, oh boy, was that good stuff last night!

The milk we got in AZ was from Holsteins. There was about an inch of cream at the top of the gallon bottle when it separated. And that's an inch at the narrowest part. This milk we got here was from a different breed. I forgot to ask what breed, but this milk has a good 3 inches of cream! It is soooo tasty! Now, I know that lots of people are afraid of fat, but truly, this is the fat we are supposed to be eating. Throw out the fries, not the whole milk!

At the farm, I also picked up 10 pounds of grass-fed beef, 5 dozen eggs from pastured chickens (those yolks were so golden & beautiful at breakfast this morning!), and 2 stewing hens. I got my good-food fix! Now, I just need to turn some of that beef into frozen meals for after Abby arrives!

A Plethora of Plums

On Saturday, I went to the farmer's market in downtown Lincoln, the Historic Haymarket District. It is a lot of fun, with one of the highlights being the kettle corn for sale. I bought the "large", and we are still eating it. I can't imagine what the "family" size looked like. I'm guessing I would've had to bring the van around for them to load it!

The prices are good for the produce. And, I feel good buying from local farmers. I wish I could get everything there. But, on Saturday, I got an awesome deal. Plums were $3 for a 3 lb or 14 lb box, your choice. Yes, that's 14 lbs of plums for $3. Of course, I bought it.

Since then, we've had lots & lots of plums.

The kids and I made plum preserves. We had trouble getting it to gel up, but I understand that it may be the Rapadura sugar I used. It is still delicious & still is good spread on a sandwich...just a little runnier than it should be. It will make great pancake or ice cream topping too.

Yesterday, we made plum cobbler. This is the recipe we used & it was absolutely delicious:

Plum Cobbler
Combine 3/4 cups sugar, 10 sliced plums, 2 tbsp cornstarch and 1/4 tsp cinnamon. Pour into 8x12" baking dish. In another bowl, combine, 2 tbsp sugar, 1 cup flour, 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, and 1/4 tsp salt. Cut in 1/4 cup butter until it resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in 1/4 cup milk and 1 beaten egg, just until moistened. Drop batter over fruit. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes.

And now, as I've unpacked our ice cream maker today and plan on picking up some maple syrup tomorrow, we will be making plum sherbet from the Nourishing Traditions cookbook. Yum yum! Still, I think I'll have to just give up & cut some up to freeze for smoothies.

14 pounds of plums is quite a bit.

Peach Pickin'

A week and a half ago, we spent the morning up at Date Creek Ranch picking peaches from their u-pick orchard. The peaches were ripe, juicy and delicious. We ate them right from the tree. We learned pretty quickly that the bees also enjoyed a ripe peach and would nibble on them. But, if you eat the other side where the bees left the peach alone, you are guaranteed one fantastic peach.
The kids sure ate their fill. Meagan left with peach juice dripped all down the front of her shirt and all of hands were sticky.
Don was the official top-of-the-tree peach picker. He tried using an apple picker to get the really high ones, but that tends to poke the delicate peaches. So, he resorted to just reaching as high as he could & sometimes lifting Meagan up to get a beauty just out of his reach.
We ended up with 11 pounds of peaches. Not counting the ones that left already in our tummies. (Don't worry...it was allowed!!) If I knew anything about jam making, we definitely would've gotten more. The only we did with them besides just eating them plain was to put them in smoothies & in our yogurt. Yum! Yum!

A few odds & ends

First, the deal of a lifetime. This is the stuff dreams are made of. Literally. I actually have dreams about this stuff. Anyway, I went to a little neighborhood kids/maternity retail shop yesterday just to see what they had. I found a long black Mimi Maternity (if you are wondering why I'm shopping for maternity, get thyself down to the next post, my friend!) dress. Just a simple black dress. One of those you could easily dress up to be an evening gown, but you could also get away with wearing it to church. It still had the original price tag on it. $98. Guess how much I paid. You'll never guess. Come on, try! Ok, I'll tell you. 25 cents. Yes, 25 cents. I'm still in shock. I bought a hundred dollar dress for a quarter. And, it's nice! Wow, I'm still on an adrenaline high from it. I got 3 other maternity items, including a black velvet Mimi maternity dress, an Old Navy v-neck shirt & a Motherhood red sweater. All for 25 cents each.

Second, Caleb had 3 baby teeth pulled today. Poor kid. His canines were in the way and not letting his permanent teeth come in. His mouth is really crowded & his big front gap doesn't help things. Also, he had a hung-up molar that had not been able to move all the way in...it had been sitting in the same, just-erupted position for probably a year, so they yanked the baby molar out that was blocking it. I think the tooth fairy doubles her rate for these sorts of situations!

Third, morning (all day) sickness hasn't been too bad yet. It's off & on. At one time of the day, I'll be feeling like my stomach is sitting about and inch under my throat & ready to spill it's contents any moment. Later, I'm just fine. It's weird. Since often a sign of a impending miscarriage can be lack of morning (all day) sickness, Don has taken to saying "Good!" when I tell him I'm not feeling well. I mean, I understand and all, but that doesn't seem very empathetic, does it?

And lastly, I have absolutely no idea what to plan for dinner tonight. I'm usually much better about having a plan, but I wasn't feeling great at lunch & ate the leftover meatballs & spaghetti sauce over noodles that I had reserved for tonight. I seem to crave Italian when my stomach is turning. Weird. So, now I don't know. Caleb thinks we should treat him to a post-tooth-extraction dinner out. We'll see about that.

I'm working on getting that photo of Meagan in her Big Sister shirt. Really, I am. Soon.

A couple of Junk-Food Flunkies

We went to a SuperBowl party last night & I made some cute cupcakes like this...

So the little pennants are made out of fruit roll-ups. I have not purchased fruit roll-ups in years, both because I feel like they are a waste of money for the amount of food you actually get & because the kids just don't need a leathery mix of sugar & colors. But, I bought a box for this dessert because it was just so cute & hey, if I don't like football, at least I could get some excitement from the snacks! And, I told the kids they could eat the leftovers. Well, we had probably 6 roll-ups left & they asked for one after they had their apples at snacktime. I agreed & we grabbed them to have while running errands. I opened the outer package in the car & handed the roll back to them. I didn't think I had to tell them that the snacks are wrapped up in plastic. Imagine my surprise when we are walking into JoAnn's & BOTH of them are trying to bite through the plastic!! I guess we don't eat junk food enough for them to figure out some of the finer points of junk food consumption. Like the little boogers are often layer upon layer of unnecessary packaging. Or, that even though the texture may be the same, there is a difference between the junk & the wrapping (though the only difference may be the sugars & colors!) Maybe that's some of the "socialization" that they are missing out on by not being in school. You know, junk food exposure. I can live with that, I guess.

Raw milk...a dream come true!

I never fully realize what a weirdo I am until I have a dream like this one...Thursday night, I dreamt that while I was at Trader Joe's buying my normal organic milk, I noticed a small label on it that said that it was raw milk. I was elated, smiling, tearing up, dancing around, and hugging my gallon of milk.

When I got up that next morning, I had a renewed interest in figuring out just how to get raw milk for my family. As far as I knew, there wasn't any place to get it here in AZ. But, I started googling & before long, came across a rather new dairy, called Creme de la Moo. They are here, though admittedly an hour away. Anyway, I was thrilled to at least have something within the sprawling Phoenix area.

Today, we went and picked up our first 4 gallons of raw milk & toured the facility. It's pretty small-time, with only 30 cows (only 24 are milked for the raw milk, though, because 4 have mastitis & 2 had received injections before they came to them.) We got to pet the calves & inspect the milking area. (Side note: They have 2 tanks where the milk goes before being bottled. They share the facilities with other farmers, with 1 tank being for their organic raw milk & the other tank for milk that will go for pasteurization. The organic milk tank is refrigerated & the other one is not. He said they don't care what grows in there since it goes for pasteurization anyway. Yuck!) The tour was great. I'm trying to get my organic produce co-op owners to think about being a distributor site for the milk so that we don't have to drive as far. But tonight, we'll sit down to dinner with big glasses of raw milk & drink up the healthy "good bugs", as Meagan calls them.

Bye, bye microwave!

I've been wanting to get rid of this thing for a while now. I have one that sits on my counter & hate, hate, hate things on my counter (unless it's my pretty red Kitchen Aid mixer!) Originally, I wanted to replace it with an over-the-stove microwave, but Don was hesitant to spend money on it since we won't be here much longer than another year. Then, I started to think, "Hey, why do I need this thing anyway???" I don't like using it. I've read about how it changes the properties of food. I already never microwave in plastic anymore. So, I put it out in the garage to see if I could live without it and lo & behold, I can! So, in just a few minutes, I'm driving it over to donate it. No turning back! I don't think I'll miss it.