a day in the life: Friday, June 10, 2011

This is our driveway, long and steep. The neighborhood is super green right now, and all the wildflowers are blooming. In a few weeks, though, it will progress into dead grass and lots of dust.

I woke up at 5:30 and went out to take a nice shower. (Generally I don't get up until around 6:30.)

I cut some grass to feed to my goats.

Levi still sleeping.

Another morning's milk.

Empty udder

Kai Ryssdal being cute.

Levi woke up.

Made the bed.

Started some yogurt with the morning's milk

Cracked a few eggs for popover batter. The egg on the left really was huge.

Charlotte helped me with the popovers.

Popover batter: eggs, flour, milk, a little butter and salt. I'll post the details on the blog someday in the future.

Ready to bake in the barbecue. This pan is one of the only cast iron pans I've purchased new. It's a Lodge from Lehman's, and I love it.

They popped!

Kids ate their popovers with blackberry jam. I had mine with honey.

Soon to be sun tea.

Put it out to brew on the stairs.

Hung some laundry out to dry on the back porch. Henry wears those crazy wool socks even in the summer.

Friends came over! First we played inside. Charlotte was taking pictures of her buddy Jai.

Then we played outside. That's Levi's own excavator on the rock pile.

My friend Jenny and her little girl Yasmina. Jenny and I have know each other since we were about nine years old. She recently moved back to the area after almost ten years living in Portland. I'm really happy to have another homestead mama/friend relatively close by.

I cut some rhubarb to sell at the Corvallis Saturday Farmers' Market, (one of?) the longest-running farmers' market in the state.

Three friends walked up the hill together.

Propane stovetop needs a flame to ignite.

Levi requested a fried egg with goat cheese for lunch.

Charlotte wanted a quesadilla with both cheddar (not mine but Tillamook extra sharp) and goat cheese. We recently finished off our stash of frozen blueberries and have been feeling a little fruit deprived for a couple weeks, so I finally broke down and bought some Californian grapes and nectarines the other day. They rounded out the meal with some store-bought fruit (rare around here).

I had a fried egg and a quesadilla plus a little chocolate. I hadn't tried this kind before. but it's amazing. I highly recommend it.

We loaded up in the car, and took the short trip to my parents' place (about 6 miles). I planned it so that Charlotte would fall asleep, and I could leave her in the car outside the window.

My mom just finished baking bread for the farmers' market. She's been selling there since the year I was born (28 years ago).

She also makes some pretty dang good cinnamon rolls.

My parents' house is my shipping headquarters. I needed to packaged up three cutting boards that had been purchased in the last day or so. Each board got a card with care instructions.

I'm not a world-class gift wrapper, but I do okay.

I make my own boxes out of used cardboard. This winter, my dad (a reforestation specialist at a local timber company) saved a bunch of sheets of cardboard that were layered between boxes of tree seedlings. They work great for my purposes.

I left my kids behind with my mom, and made a quick trip to the post office (another 3 miles). My dog goes with me everywhere. She is the most loyal creature on the planet.

I was tempted to bring my camera inside to take a photo of the most helpful postal employee of all time. I thought he might be kind of weirded out by that. Shout out to Tom at the Philomath post office!

I picked up our mail at our PO box. The Capital Press is a great weekly newspaper covering ag issues in the West. We also got a bill from our health insurance company. There's a proposal to raise premiums 22% next year for individuals who don't get health insurance through their employers. We are two self-employed adults and two healthy children, and our premiums went up about 20% last year, too. I do not pretend to have an answer to the problem, but it stinks for us, and I'd really like someone to get this mess sorted out.

I stopped into the gas station. I drive an '01 Subaru Forester that gets about 25 mpg, which isn't great but isn't too bad for a family vehicle. We don't leave the house every day, but when we do, we drive 16-35 miles just to do a few errands.

I met up with Stu, my wood supplier.

We unloaded a unit of bigleaf maple slabs at my brother in law's house. I'm going to turn these slabs into cutting boards over the next few weeks.

Back at my parents' place, my mom was loading up her van with basil starts to sell at the farmers' market.

She uses the bottoms of gallon milk jugs (with a few holes drilled in them) for free and recycled pots.

I picked up the kids and headed back home. The tea was done.

Henry was home from work already. His primary job is shoeing horses, but he is also a habitat restoration contractor, who meets with landowners participating in a program to increase habitat for local endangered butterflies. He was really excited about this interesting plant specimen that he found. I have no idea what it is, but he could tell you all about it.

Bath time for two dirty kids.

Taking a bath on the porch is pretty fun.

We were invited to a potluck at the neighbor's house. We had never been there before, but she throws a pretty good party. We brought the usual goat cheese and crackers, which is easy for us, and people love it.

The weather was good, and the food was good (especially because I didn't have to cook).

The view was incredible. Ahhh...what a way to end the day!