Of RAIN!!! (but I'll get to that :)
This year is the 1st year ever that I've gotten more then a handful of beans from my own garden. So far with only 2 pickings I have gotten 3 gallons of BEANS!!! They are some sort of bush beans and are doing wonderfully. I have no idea what the name is but hopefully will remember again next year. BUSH beans work!! For those of you in warmer climates this is not a hard feat. But for us up north this is a huge blessing. Speaking of blessings we've had a few lately. The beans, which Bindy begs for over her fence, are just one of several.
Boogers. I know they are nasty things to talk about but I'm going to anyway. We've had perfect summer weather ever since the "Rain Out". If anything it's been too warm!! Imagine that!! So it figures that the children would get a summer cold. Thankfully it was only a minor one and except for R and now, just today, Papa, it was very mild and consisted of a mild irritating runny nose and a bit of crankiness. R's had a runny nose for about a week and these days it's not unheard to hear BOOGERS MOMMA!! Which means I grab a tissue or yell for another child to get one and meet me at the baby. A bit drastic you say!! Not with R's boogers. She sniffs once or twice and she's already got boogers to her chin!!! I think part of the reason we got the cold in the first place is because we were rationing milk (frozen from the freezer) and now we are OUT!! But we'll get to that!! :)
J has officially learned how to ride his bike with 2 wheels!!! YAHOO. He still needs a good push to start out because the seat on his bike doesn't go down far enough but once he's off he can go a long way!! So we've been learning turns and that if you put your legs down fast enough you won't crash. LOL. He is starting to be able to push himself a little bit and ALMOST get going by himself. But right now if I push him at the shavings pile he can go all the way to the house , turn around and come back to me!! He's also been raiding my broccoli patch. Or rather HIS broccoli patch as he is the only reason I planted it. He loves what he calls "home grown broccoli!"
Blessings. The last few weeks we've been really blessed in different ways. The T family has had us over several times for supper, lunch or just for a few hours of fun sliding on their homemade water slide. They also blessed E with a girls bike complete with training wheels. Last week we were able to bless them back by helping them butcher their meat birds. What a great way to bless this friendship.
Belated Bindy started out as Blasted Beast Bindy... but I changed it to Belated Bindy as that is where the trouble started. Bindy is now 13 days late to have her calf and we are torn between worrying whether there IS a calf and knowing that there IS a calf and wondering WHY she hasn't had it. She is a bit bagged up but not tons. She didn't really bag up last year so we're not to worried about that. But she doesn't seem to be ready to have a calf at all. Besides that she's taken off to the neighbors 2 times in the last 3 weeks. Once when we were at the "Rain Out" and our really nice helpful neighbor Mike had to go and get her and bring her back to his place where we'd left her for the weekend. Thanks Mike!! She escaped his place again and we finally brought her home, thinking that she wasn't happy enough there and sure enough the day we brought her home she bagged up a noticeable amount. Since then she's broken out again and headed to that same neighbors (He has a bunch of Black Angus and thinks she's picking out her next years mate.) this time in the middle of the day and he had to put her in a corral until Papa got off work. Then when Papa went and got her she 'headed for the high country' and he had to chase her though several fields and a lot of bush before he caught her and dragged her home. That night her punishment was to be tied short to a tree for the entire night. Amazingly the next day and ever since she has been a ANGEL!! Not even yanking on the rope. I think she realized that Papa really does MEAN it. But she also got a lesson from the fence yesterday. It was HOT and she must have tried to go thru it and next thing we know Bindy is half way to the lagoon and the fence is on the ground. Hee hee. I've been told that horses can hold their foals in for a certain amount of time until they can get alone or in more happier/safer surroundings but I've never heard of a COW doing that. Needless to say Papa and I have spent a considerable amount of time looking at her and we've seen that calf move several times. Bindy carries her calf on her right and her rumen on the left. There is a hollow spot above the calf and a BUMP below that is the calf. This bump moves actively much like my belly did when I was pregnant. So we are fairly certain there is a calf. But boy do we wish she'd just have it already. We are completely out of frozen milk and butter!! I had to BUY butter for the 1st time in a year last week. The milk only ran out yesterday but we are unsure what we are going to do about that. Store bought is not a option but we may be able to get milk from a person near us if Bindy holds out much longer. She has a LARGE private area she can calve in.. but so far she spends most of her time on the front lawn. The pen goes from the driveway to the lagoon along side the kids play area, garden and greenhouse. Last year she had Bobby right beside the house!! I still think BLASTED BEAST BINDY applies!! :)
Rain beautiful rain!! Last week it cooled off a bit and yesterday it finally rained!! Other then a short 'dampening' rain which barely got the dust damp we've not had a rain since the "Rain Out". Buckets and Buckets of Rain. I love the sound on the tin roof. Then this morning, Papa's day off, we went out to do some fencing (another story all together!!) and it POURED!! Rain drops as big as quarters!! After a couple of minutes of this it quit long enough for us to half finish our job and then came a more moderate steady rain. By the time we finished I was soaked thru!!
And cooling and sealing it's self in jars. Note the heavy glove. This stuff is HOT!!! The brown jars are cracklings. I also got 5 yogurt containers of lard (that I froze) and 3 of cracklings.
The cooker. To fill the jars I placed a clean piece of plywood over the top and used it as a table. 
