Has it been five weeks, already?!?

Looking back over my last two posts it seems like so much has happened this summer! You may not see it, but it strikes me as kind of mind boggling. There are also changes going on behind the scenes that I won't go into in case plans change. Nothing negative, but things tend to go back and forth around here, and I'll wait 'til things firm up before mouthing off about them. Ha ha.

Everyone's still enjoying the pool and that turkey keeps on growing!

You may recall that Micah was raising 100 meat chickens. A few days ago something small (a weasel perhaps?) got into their pen and killed several of them. They were only a week away from going to the butcher so Micah called and the processing place said they could take them the next day, so we loaded them up and off they went. Out of 100 chicks she had 94 left, which isn't a bad outcome. Raising that many chickens is a big undertaking. She headed to Brainerd (about an hour and  a half away) to pick them up today. Success! :)

I made another batch of goat cheese today. This is my third batch and each one has turned out a little different. It seems that using apple cider vinegar produces a harder cheese/larger curds, while lemon juice produces a softer cheese/smaller curds. I didn't add enough salt last time. I think I did okay this time around. 

I'm hoping for a harder batch this time. I like to be able to grate it into my eggs. But it's good either way! Still got some pressing left to do on this batch.

I also made a rhubarb cream cake. I came across rhubarb at the grocery store earlier in the summer and bought a big bunch, which I chopped up and froze. It turned out pretty well. I have enough rhubarb left to make a rhubarb crunch, so that will be next. I shared most of the cream cake with Micah's family, but I saved plenty for myself. I don't need to be eating entire cakes, right? 

Audrey is currently in volleyball and goes 3 hours every weekday! What is this; the Olympics?!? She's the only one in a sport at the moment. Oh, and she won enough ribbons at the county fair with her dog that she's now going to the state competition in Minneapolis next month.

Micah starts online classes tomorrow. She's finishing up her bookkeeping degree (or whatever it's called) that she started years ago. She has two semesters of work to do, and she hopes to do some part-time bookkeeping at some point. So many things! 

I'm still reading D-Day by Stephen Ambrose. It's long, but very interesting and I'm taking breaks. No hurry. I'm also reading a little self-published book called Facing Jerusalem written by a Christian ministry in Israel. My last novel was The Visitation by Frank Peretti. Kind of hair raising in places. I think I'll go back to Christian Regency romances, lol. More relaxing.

Thatcher aka Chuck, has joined the crowd when it's time to go to Grandma's house. See him in the middle? (Della, Hazel, Thatcher, Sully and Audrey) He usually stays home with Mom when they come over, but we're seeing if he can stay out of trouble, ha ha. 

Do you see him? I found this fellow swimming around in the wading pool a while back. He kind of startled me! Cute, eh?

This is a nice basswood tree that grows next to the neighbor's house. Adam pointed out that it hums! We all had to walk under it and see for ourselves. It was so full of honeybees that it really does sound like it's humming. (That was earlier in the summer.)

No ATCs this time! What's the world coming to? I'm scaling back for the present and just waiting for cards to come back in the mail. 

It's a nice day today and I'll probably take a walk a little later when it cools down. I enjoy walking in the evening when the road is shaded by the woods. 

I'm off to read your blogs! Thanks for checking up on me.

Shalom and love!