A Fall Walk

Yesterday evening Emily and I took a nice fall walk. The air smelled just like fall, the beautiful goldenrod were in full bloom, and now Emily is sick today with allergies! Guess that is what happens when you walk right through the goldenrod patch. I never had too much trouble with them, so didn't think about little Em having allergies to them. Now I know!!

We were supposed to make a batch of cheese today, but we didn't get any sleep last night. If Emily don't feel well and can't sleep, she will see to it that the rest of us is up too! Of course today, despite feeling under the weather, she is quite chipper. Ugh! Wish I was.

So, instead of making cheese, I've been working on signs and printing out recipes for the Pumpkin festival next week. I'm getting excited about it! I'll take this afternoon and tomorrow to make sure I have enough cheese cut up for this coming Saturday in Marietta, and then next week starting Sunday evening or Monday, I'll start packing like crazy for that weekend.

I'm actually pretty proud of my signs. I used the computer mostly because I know if I make signs free hand, it would be better to just have Emily make them for me! I'll get some pictures up of those soon.

Fall

A silly, self-portrait family picture...
Emily on the Merry-Go-Round, with (of course) her arm hiding her face!

Having some fun while watching the Olympics
Silly Mommy and Emily self-portrait.

It's not officially fall yet, but it is close. I see some people putting their pumpkins and scarecrows out. I'm a little behind, I guess.



I getting things organized for the Pumpkin Festival. Found a nice piece of material to use as a tablecloth. It has a fall "feel" to it, but not loud and noisy like some of the vinyl table cloths seem to be. Still working on my signs. Just can't get it right. At least I have a little over 2 weeks to get things prepared. This will be my first year going, so it will be somewhat different than going to the weekly farm market. I will be set up Friday, Saturday and Sunday, 10 until 5. But, it is usually busy! Emily will be staying home with daddy, at least the first day or so.



Emily has started writing!! We're so surprised and excited. Her first written word.....Ohio, then shell, Emily, hi, he. She's actually recognizing most of her sight words. Amazing! Of course I am bragging a bit, but I guess that is a mom thing!



Not too much else going on around here in the way of exciting. Just this and that.

County Fair Days

We took a day off to go to the county fair today. Of course it was hot and humid, that's pretty typical of our county fair, since it's in the hot days of August.
Where I grew up, the fair was in October, so you could get a nice variety of weather, all in the same week! I remember some years it was cold enough to have a small amount of snow, and other years it felt like mid-summer. Especially the year I took my rabbit to the fair. I didn't think the poor rabbit was going to survive the week.

Emily had her first taste of cotton candy. (And I forgot my camera!!!) She liked it ok, but said it was too "ticky" (sticky). I never was fond of cotton candy, even as a kid. Now give me an elephant ear or funnel cake any day and I'm pretty happy. I also like those sugar waffles, but our county fair doesn't have them.

There was a table set up under the grandstand selling homemade jellies and jams. Different flavors than I had ever heard of... banana jam, watermelon jelly, A&W Rootbear jelly, Mountain Dew jelly...etc. I picked up some of the watermelon jelly. Emily is crazy about anything watermelon. She'd eat a whole melon if I let her! So, we'll see how that tastes.

Emily also had some fun riding the Merry-Go-Round with her daddy. (Again, I forgot my camera!!!!) She looked so cute waving at me each time they went around. So cute!

Of course we had to look at the animals. She didn't care about seeing any of them, until we got to the horse barn. She is bonkers about horses! She must take after me! I thought she would be excited to see the rabbits, sheep, and pigs, since we don't have any of those here....but, she didn't seem to even care.

That is pretty much the fun around here. We may make another trip down, this time in the evening when it is a little cooler!! They're having a square dance on Saturday night. Sounds like fun to me..

Slow week so far...

It's only Tuesday, but so far this week has been slow. Not sure why. We're planning a cheese make on Thursday, but if we don't get some rain, that make may be postponed. We have a cistern that is rain fed. One inch of rain can fill it up, but we haven't had any significant rain for awhile. And cheese making can use quite a bit of water.

The weather is much nicer lately. Feels more like September than August. Fine by me too!

We are almost done with our last hayfield for 1st cutting. Not good to be in August still doing 1st cutting. We're pretty sure we'll have a good 2nd cutting off of our 1st and 2nd hayfields. And as of now we almost have 400+ bales of hay made from just this years. And we have leftover hay from the past 2 years that is still looking very good. Thankfully, we have had the help of our neighbor, and he raked the hay yesterday so Al could just follow behind him and bale. Makes the work go a lot faster!

We've been enjoying the Olympics the past few nights. Staying up a little too late, but it seems like they show the good stuff right at 11:00 p.m.

Last night I made us a treat to nibble on while we watched the games. It's a wonderful recipe sent to me by my friend Marion (GLU). Delicious!!!!

Taco Dip

Preheat oven to 350*.

Jar of Salsa

1 (8oz.) pkg. of cream cheese, softened

mexican cheese

Spread cream cheese onto bottom of an 8" ovenproof dish.

Spread salsa (1/4 of jar) over cream cheese.

Sprinkle Mexican cheese over it all.

Cook until cheese is melted.

Serve with tortilla chips. (We had the Frito's Scoops with ours)

YUM!!!!

Of course I felt a little sick most of the night because I enjoyed the chips and dip a bit toooo much! But, it was so worth it. I actually have enough ingredients to whip it up again. May wait until this weekend to do that.

Ok, now I'm off. I'm planning on getting the waxer turned on and melt some red wax and get some Gouda waxed today. Also need to pick up some boxes that our vet office has held back for us. They are so good about saving boxes and cold packs. We appreciate that so much! Never too many boxes around here!

Making Hay

Just a day around the farm...

Tired

It's been a long day. I'm tired!

We made a batch of cheese today. We ended up getting 10 wheels of Gouda, each wheel weighing about 10 lbs. each. It didn't finish up in the press until after 10 p.m. So, I'm still up, sleepy as can be, but just can't sleep just yet.

We're planning on making another batch of cheese on Wednesday. I sometimes hate making batches that close together, it takes me some time in between to catch other work up that slides. But, the last of the week is supposed to be clear, so hopefully Al can get back to our back hayfield and finish up the haymaking, at least until the next cutting comes on.

Went to some more yard sales this past week. I'm so shocked and disgusted at how much people really think their junk is worth. And yes, I did mean JUNK. Now, on the other hand, I did find some good sales that had nice stuff for cheap. They got my money. Emily will be well dressed for the remainder of the summer, and into fall. I even found some clothes that fit me nicely for almost nothing.

It almost feels like fall today and tonight. Low humidity, sunny. Tonight the crickets were chirping, that is a sure sign that summer is on the downhill side. Some of my dear GLU friends will be thrilled with the coming of fall. I do enjoy spring and summer, but I have to admit that I am starting to look forward to the cooler days. And cheese making will be ending at the end of November, so that means about a 3-4 month break over the winter months.

I will be a vendor at our local pumpkin festival in the lovely town of Barnesville. I'm sure I'll be busy, busy, busy. But, I do look forward to it. It's also a lot of fun seeing how big the "King Pumpkin" can be each year.

Now I'm off to bed. I need some sleep. I get to look forward to cheese house clean up in the morning. I could've/should've done it tonight, but.......