…. to tell you that Michael’s sentencing got postponed again! We went to court last week for the second time only to learn that it was postponed. Michael had only just found out also. Next time we’ll call the court ahead of time.

Apparently the two prosecutors are not in agreement with each other. Michael agreed to the plea bargain for the more serious crimes & the lesser crime a week later was supposed to be tied in so the sentences would run concurrently. Well now there has been a hitch which will work out eventually but for now we just have to wait.

Will keep you posted.

Happy Tuesday!

Liz

Richard & Michelle both said to me yesterday, “You haven’t written the blog in ages!” I’m like, “Yes I have - I did it last week!” Of course Richard then had to go prove to me that it was Sept 16th over 10 days ago! Where does the time go?! We are still here. Last week was obviously busy! it was - I had my head in alot of art & orders. So I guess I now need to back track a little.

Miss Daffodil got herself into more mischief after the last post. After I had milked Tulip one morning I come out the barn to find her & the two calves drinking off of Tulip! Poor cow. As you can see from these pics Daffodil is nearly the same size as her mum & has some rather sharp horns.

AND she doesn’t look thin & wasting away either, does she?!

After taking the pics we put Daffodil back down into the main pasture.

We had a sick piglet last week - took him to the vets & he thought he had some kind of infection. We treated him but to no avail - no improvement so had to say “Goodbye.” The others are fine so kinda weird.

Weather last week was HOT. We hit 90 again which is rather unusual for us at this time of year. Last night saw the first frost though - went down to 29 & there was ice on the water bowls this morning.

Hope you enjoy your week,

Liz

Finally getting to milk Tulip again of a morning which is nice. (Enjoyed a glass tonight ) Puss ‘n Boots is VERY pleased to be getting his bowl of milk again. After milking this morning, Tulip’s calves & Daffodil were nowhere to be found. (Daffodil had come up from the pasture this past weekend when we had tried to separate our cows from the main herd - no success as they broke the fence but that’s another story!) I looked around a bit but then decided to come in & eat breakfast & then take a walk.

The weather has been gorgeous - up in the 80’s. There are a few mosquitoes but not enough to worry about. We had a cool night the other night so that got rid of a lot. Kids, dogs & I took the first long walk down the field. Here’s Tulip standing in the irrigation ditch, drinking & cooling her feet - at this time not fretting about her babies.

Needless to say the calves were not down in the pasture but the river is low in places so the kids were able to do some paddling. They were thrilled. Duchess caught the first frog then her & Daniel were in “heaven” looking for frogs of which there were plenty. If Duchess caught one the frog would play dead & Daniel would pick it up & put it in the water. Sometimes Duchess re-caught it! Maddie. Razz & Bella  spent the time swimming. It was beautiful down there.

Finally had to come back home to do some work!

Called the neighbor to see if she had seen the calves - Nope! I figured they had jumped a fence somewhere & were back with the main herd. I was packing up an order when Daniel comes in saying that he had found the babies down in the old house! I follow him out. In fact the stupid calves & Daffodil had climbed down into the old root cellar! Goodness knows what they were doing climbing down those stairs & staying there even though Tulip was out there bellowing for them. The old root cellar is falling in & needs to be reinforced etc. We don’t use it as we had planned to restore it.

Everyone was happily reunited so that was my morning.

Take care,

Liz

I know so many of you love to eat well & healthily. SO we have just opened up a new “Healthy Recipes” forum which we would LOVE you to take part in. We will be sharing some of our recipes that we have posted on this blog plus some new ones.

Healthy Recipes please

How many of you use Bisquick? How many of you have read the ingredients? Hmm…. they’re not so good so I was thrilled when I found this recipe in a magazine called Down to the Roots. You make it up in bulk & keep it in the refrigerator. You then use it just like you would ANY Bisquick recipe. It is SO tasty. It does not cake together - stays crumbly.
10 cups whole wheat flour

3/8 cup Baking Powder

1 tsp Cream of Tartar

1 1/4 cup Powdered milk. (We use the organic Instant milk here at CHF. The powdered milk you can buy in the regular grocery store has been processed with all sorts of nasty chemicals.)

1 1/2 Tbsp Salt

1/4 cup Sugar (raw is better)

1 lb butter

Mix all the dry ingredients together & then chop/mix in the butter.

Warning: This only keeps for about 4-6 weeks so in the warmer months when pie etc is not on the menu so much I only make half the mix - shown here. Half mix fits in a half gallon (64oz) jar. This pic already had two cups taken out to make my pie. A full recipe JUST fits in a gallon jar (128 oz)

Enjoy!

Liz

Got up bright & early this morning & all of us rushed out the door to get to the court on time. When we get there Michael nor his lawyer were anywhere to be seen nor was Michael’s name on the docket. Come to find out. a new law has just passed that states that all victims of a crime have to be notified of the court date & given a sufficient period of time in which to make arrangements to come if they so wish. SO Michael’s new sentencing date is Sept 24th.

Michael had tried to call us but we had already left. Met him outside on our way out.

Got blessed with two gallons of fresh milk today Our friends have a Holstein cow who right now is giving them copious amounts of milk so they called this afternoon to see if we wanted any. You betcha! We enticed Tulip down into the pasture this evening with her calves. The bull was sounding SO pitiful so Tulip took down her love offering of a nice pile of hay & they were eating that together when we left. This way she should keep her udder intact & get the “job” accomplished so that we have a nice calm & happy cow again.

I’ll be back in a little while with a new recipe.

Liz

…. Remember all those tomatoes I was dehydrating last week? It took me 5 days to get them done as each batch took about 18 hours! Each batch went from this:

to this:

Isn’t that cool? That’s a 32 oz jar. On Friday we got the chance to go up to a neighbors & pick snap beans. Came home with a 5 gallon bucket full. Now we like green beans but I knew we couldn’t eat that many before they went bad so I dehydrated a load for soups in the winter. Yesterday I started on the carrots again & then yesterday evening we got given a big bag of tart apples & a bag of plums. As I “mature” in age I am learning not to turn down God’s provision - instead I ask the question, “How can I use this?” OK I will admit I’m not perfect here, I did turn down beets last week! LOL!

I think I can safely say that I never know what is going to happen here on any given day. Daniel helped me make applesauce this morning - made 14 lovely pints. We are not huge dessert fans so was a little unsure as to what to do with the plums but then decided to make plum sauce in hopes of turning it into a plum/lemonade drink at a later stage. I do not add sugar to apple sauce or to this plum sauce so this stuff is ready to bite back. We will add honey when we use it. SO that got me thinking more - we made 8 x 1/2 pints this morning but I knew of unwanted plums elsewhere so this afternoon we went & picked plums. Came home & have made another 30 half pints of plum sauce. Richard helped as the kitchen was a bit of mess (slight understatement) - went alot quicker with him there.

Tulip is still teasing the bull! Poor thing last night was looking over the fence at her. As for her, we still have no milk. We got rid of her mastitis but her bag still remained rock hard. Finally had the vet out last week & so he gave her some more medication for the swelling & that has helped a LOT. I’m not a fan of medicating animals (or humans for that matter) but there are times when it has to be done. Of course you have to wait several days for the meds to go through the system for the milk to be safe to drink. By the time she is ready to be milked again, she will be back in heat & I will be opening that gate WIDE!

It’s Michael’s first sentencing in the morning so that is where we’ll be “bright & early!” Michael is a different kid (for the better) than he was 6 mths ago & I’m not just saying that because I’m his mum.

Will let you know how it goes,

Take care & BTW all the Bay Leaves are gone.

Liz