Wet and Windy

It's so windy here today. It is drying everything out really nice but I hate to put tender seedlings out to get hammered by 35mph winds. It seems today is the proverbial rock and a hard place. That's okay tho, I'll do some tilling later on and try to get everything I want out planted before the next round of rain comes in.

The latest batch of house kittens seem to have a "thing" for my shoes.

The latest round of pound cake did not make it to the canned cherries. I'm not that surprised, anything sweet is a comfort food in this house and it never lasts very long. The past 15 months have been pretty rough for this farm and it shows on the faces and in the behaviors of each of us. Even with the new employment, it's still very stressful. Barely scraping by from paycheck to paycheck is a lousy way to live. I can't imagine what would happen to us if I didn't grow our food. I guess we'd either be starving or homeless. Speaking of which, I have 9 chickens and 6 rabbits to butcher sometime in the next day or so.

Woohoo! How about them taters? All 4 tires look great and the red potatoes are very quickly catching up to the russets. I've always had trouble with red potatoes in the ground. They never seemed to produce well. The tater tires may very well be the red potato jackpot. So far, so good tho. Just the thought of a good potato harvest is somehow very comforting to me. We sure do like our potatoes around here.

My second round of radish and carrots have finally sprouted. I will keep a couple from this round to grow to seed production so I can harvest my seed for next season. I still have enough seed for 2 more plantings but I learned last year it is better to way too much seed than barely enough. So, as long as I can keep the cats from laying all over the plants, I should be in good shape there.

I finally got 2 gourd seeds to sprout! I have been waiting more than a month for those seeds to do something. Just 2 out of 10 so far and they are the cannonball gourds. Still no bushel or apple gourd sprouts. I did manage to get 1 luffa seed to sprout too. I was really surprised about that, the seed is more than 10 years old. I'm going to try another handful so I can replenish my luffa stockpile. I'm on my next to last sponge here.

Well, back to the kitchen, we're out of bread, again.......

The American Community Survey

Oh, is my blood ever boiling right now! I just got a letter in the mail informing me that my address has been "chosen" to participate in the American Community Survey! Yay Rah! My compliance is "required by law". Oh yah? You show me what law????

Where does it say that I must SUBMIT to telling the Census Bureau how long I have owned my home? How many acres of land I own? How much money I make? Which fuel do I use the most of to heat my home? How many separate rooms are in this home??? How many are bedrooms??? What was your last months utility bill for electric? What are all your sources of income, including other incomes?? What was the total income for the enitre household last year??? What was last months gas bill?? WTF? I was just going to put the number of people that reside here on it and send it back but then, the more I thought about it, the more pissed off I became. I am so unbelievely angry right now. Here we are, just struggling to make it back and forth to a job that doesn't pay enough to pay our bills, keep our heads above water with the tax hikes, utility rate hikes, the unGodly cost of fuel to get to work and the prices of everything else that has tripled over the past 18 months, not to mention us making it thru 9 months of unemployment with ZERO state or government help and the Census Bureau thinks it should threaten me to pilfer private information from me? Here's my line, it drawn.


SHOW ME THE LAW WHERE IT SAYS I MUST PROVIDE PRIVATE INFORMATION ABOUT MYSELF, MY FAMILY AND MY HOME TO THE GOVERNMENT. SHOW ME WHERE IT SAYS I AM REQUIRED TO DO ANY MORE THAN BE ENUMERATED EVERY 10 YEARS.

Until I see that law, in writing, the Census Bureau can kiss my Constitution and my ass too while they're at it.

More Muddy mess

It's a mess here with all the rain. Now, the weather center is calling for 39 degrees over night. Yay rah! So, all the seedlings on the window shelf must wait, close to another 10 days before it dries up and warms up enough for them to go out. I may end up losing the cucumbers I planted outside, they are flowering but looking kind of rough. They sprout quick so if I must, it will be okay.

Welcome to the new followers, I'm thrilled you joined us!

So, today I am working on a couple more pound cakes. I only got one piece from the last round! I guess the family likes this more than I thought. So, let's talk about pound cake.

3 cups of flour, 2 cups of sugar, 3 teaspoons baking powder and a teaspoon of salt mixed together. Then I add in 2 cups of butter, 1 teaspoon of vanilla, 1 teaspoon of almond extract, 1/2 cup of milk and 6 eggs, one by one. Scrape the bowl and mix well. Grease and flour 2 loaf pans and bake at 350 until done. There is nothing like chemical and preservative free food. Give this one a try, it tastes better than store bought and is most certainly less expensive.

I'm also working on some Italian sauce for supper. Diced tomatoes, pasted tomatoes from last years garden, throw in some garlic, oregano, basil, ground sweet pepper, ground, dehydrated mushrooms, salt, pepper and any other herb you are fond of, simmer until it reaches the thickness you prefer and serve. I plan on using it for some baked Ziti with home made cheese and some sweet pork sausage I made last fall.

I'm still sitting on "go" for all the projects that need finished around here. It's going to take longer than I thought for us to catch up. The poor goats think they are attached to the fence posts they are tied to. The baby goats are growing quickly and they are climbing all over my firewood pile. Wouldn't be so bad if they didn't knock half of it down each time. Ah, they're goats, they can't help it.

Half my bird flock is setting eggs. looks like it's going to be a good winter for chicken and duck! Lots of good eating in my future....

Here comes the rain

I still have tops on my beans! The row cover is working great! Now all I need is another 20 of them, LOL. While the hubster was sub soiling, discing and tilling for me, I was working on some cheese and eliminating some of the 10 dozen eggs in the fridge. I made a couple home made pound cakes. A simple recipe, just some flour, sugar, baking powder, home churned butter, a dozen eggs with vanilla and almond extracts. They came out much better than the cheese did. Apparently, 3 day old whole milk does not make good cheese. I know, why didn't I make it the day i got the milk? I was busy and making cheese takes up the entire day. sometimes I just can't stand in my kitchen for 6 hours. The cheese ended up in a pile in the barn lot for the chickens to peck on. Darn shame too, I'm out of cheese! Guess I will try again tomorrow.

I've got my rain water catcher sitting under the eave, it's close to full. I dipped some to water the inside seedlings this morning. They just grow so much better with rain water. When this nice spring rain breaks, I will be creating a couple more grow tubs for the cherry tomatoes and the rest of the beefsteaks. They are flowering in the house and need to get outside quick. I simply can not wait until I can build the arbors to transplant them. The way it's looking, it would be at least 3 weeks before I could even consider getting a few supplies. Time to do something else less attractive but just as useful.

So much needs done, I sometimes feel a little lost trying to get so much done at once. I always want to be everywhere at once instead of concentrating on one thing at a time. Ah, it will all get done........