G brought a few bags of grass clippings from work and dumped them in the pasture. The goats and Misty immediately sniffed them out. Misty claimed the pile as a bed. The goats ate around the edge of the pile and then gave up. 😆
G and I have a new game called "I Spy". We say how many cats we can see at once and the other has to try to find them.
Lots of cats leaping onto tree trunks, hiding in the grass pouncing on each other... We even saw one playing with a mouse she had caught!
Raz wanted to join the party too...
A highlight of the night: Misty played hide and seek with a kitten around one of the big trees. She peeked around one side while the cat peeked around the other. Then they switched sides. I will say, Misty enjoyed the game more than the kitten did. It ended with Misty chasing the kitten across the lawn and into the deer fencing around the orchard.
The whey from the cottage cheese has been in the fridge long enough. Time to find a use for it.
Reddit hasn't let me down so far! Here's the recipe I chose from this thread:
whey Carmel: 2 quarts Whey 2 cups Sugar 4 ounces Butter 1 tablespoon Vanilla Extract 1 Hefty pinch of salt Simmer the whey in a heavy bottom pot on medium until it reduces by about half. Skim the foam off the top if needed. You could probably do this part at a higher temperature while keeping a close eye on it and stirring frequently so it doesn’t scorch. I like the hands off factor of this recipe, so once I got it to a slow simmer I walked away from it for an hour. After about 1- 1 1/2 hours your whey should be reduced by half and you can add the cane sugar. Stir it until the sugar is melted and it comes back to a simmer. Leave it again to simmer and caramelize. Check on it periodically to stir and assess the progress. Once you add the sugar, the caramelization process will take just over an hour. As it cooks down and caramelizes it will start to bubble and foam, keep it going on low and keep an eye on the color. Once the color is a medium-dark amber (your preference) and the viscosity looks like syrup add the cold butter and stir as it melts, continue to stir until the butter is completely mixed in. Add salt and vanilla extract
Seems simple enough. I'm making a half recipe.
Or, I was...
I poured the whey in my pot, keeping an eye on it as it heated.
Thankfully only a few drops landed on the couch (which was covered by G's sweatshirt and a quilt).
Holy buckets.
Emily, I know what we're going to do today!
I mopped the floor, wiped down the counters, stood on a sturdy stool to clean the ceiling, washed the stovetop at least three times, using a rag and toothbrush to get in the crevices, wiped down cupboard doors, and cleaned the window.
So, my kitchen is spectacularly clean right now. 😅
The remaining whey? Went down the drain. Not enough to save now. ☹️ I'll have to save the recipe for when our goats begin producing milk.
You can see the musty leaves of the cabbage, no doubt transferred across the garden from the mildew-covered squash. The rest of the cabbage is good after picking the yucky leaves off. Almost all the tomatoes are green, but they'll ripen on the counter. Hopefully the squash ripen too. We have a handful of mini-peppers! Those are the dark veggies in the top left of the basket. Okra is on the table to the right of the basket. They feel firm and woody...not sure how they'll taste.
Still hanging out in our garden: brussel sprouts, red cabbage (maybe have enough leaves covering them the frost won't damage?), carrots, and potatoes.
The orchid was a present from my sister, probably about a year ago, and the flowers from back then are long gone. She told me that with some orchids, you can cut the flower stalk at a node, and it'll make a new flower branch from the stalk instead of growing a whole new stalk. Months ago, I did that and the stalk has stayed green. Now, new growth!
I have a second orchid (present from G for my birthday back in April), again, flowers long gone. I tried the node cutting method on that plant and recently noticed the flower stalks have browned and shriveled. Guess that kind has to grow new stalks every time.
The last step is to weigh down the veggies so they stay submerged. The book gave a bunch of methods including a cabbage leaf, a boiled rock (to kill the bad bacteria), and a small glass jar. I went with the jar. You put a cloth over top to keep dust out. Two weeks from now they should be ready!
My second recipe doesn't use salt; tea tannins make fermentation happen. Ingredients - beets, fennel, and cold brew black tea.
Time to strain the apple cider vinegar. This is my first time making it with pulp from juicing. Not gonna lie, it was way more difficult. I don't think I'll be doing that again.
Maybe it would be better if I actually had cheesecloth to strain it. Our pieces are too small, so I attempted to strain it with the old fashioned apple sauce squisher.
That worked even better. Or maybe I had just gotten down to the juicier parts of the pulp.
The bottom of the jar had the most visible liquid, easiest to pour off but still requiring straining.
The air this morning was the epitome of a crisp, fall day. It reminded me of a Camp Omega morning... Made me want a bonfire really bad.
Relatives on my mom's side came to town for a family wedding this weekend, and we decided to host an impromptu get together the day before the wedding.
G was a rockstar today. He mowed the lawn, cleaned everything up outside, and even set up strings of light down by our fire pit.
And this evening was indeed the perfect night for a fire!
Yesterday, Galen and I met with doctors at Mayo in Rochester for a second opinion on our situation.
They did another full anatomy scan and cervical check, and everything is the same as last week (or very minor changes), which is a really good sign. They also had me bear down while they were checking my cervix, and my cervix stayed closed. Also very reassuring. Baby was very wiggly and squirmy, which I take to mean is that he/she is strong!
Dr. Rose wasn't as concerned about infection as the doctors at U of M were. He said the sediment could be the beginnings of an infection... or some blood or baby's sloughed off skin cells. They see that fairly often. The fact that it's been a week and I haven't had any developed symptoms seems to indicate it's not an infection. Or if it is, it might be a slow-growing one. Something to keep an eye on, but not something that would prevent me from getting a cerclage in his opinion.
He said if we wanted a cerclage, first he would check if my cervix is still closed (via manual check, not ultrasound), then I'd be strapped to a contraction monitor for a few hours, no food/drink while that's happening. If after a few hours, no contractions, they would give me a cerclage.
Our other option was to continue taking progesterone daily. A medical study just came out in August studying the effects of progesterone in women whose cervixes are still closed but are less than 12cm. In that study, women not given any intervention had a preterm labor rate of 38%. Woment given progesterone had a preterm labor rate of 19%.
Dr. Rose said that neither option is guaranteed to work, and at this point, he would feel good about us picking either way. Both are good options and we should choose what makes the most sense to us.
He did a manual cervical check and verified that my cervix is indeed still closed. We opted to not do a surgical procedure and stay with the progesterone treatment.
This morning we met with our Mankato OB, Dr. Barnacle to come up with a plan moving forward. He is fine meeting with us every two weeks, so our next appointment will be when I hit 24 weeks. Lord willing, we'll make it that long.
I've been feeling good physically. No special medical instructions aside from don't lift heavy things, try to take it easy, but live life as normally as you can. Bedrest would probably make my situation worse, so stay active. I can still do moderate exercise (walks, yoga) and go up and down stairs.
Mentally... Still a roller coaster. It was a big relief to hear that things haven't changed much from last week. I'm still on high alert for contractions, probably to my detriment. Any strange feeling makes me wonder if it's just baby moving or labor starting. Or Braxton-Hicks! Fun fact: The only difference between labor-inducing contrations and Braxton-Hicks contractions is that one opens the cervix and the other doesn't. The only way you know what you're having is if you go into labor or not.
Sometimes I feel really positive and sure baby will stay put for a long time. Then I think about percentages and how likely is it that I'll be part of the successful group?
I made a pact with Galen that I'm not going to do any deep dives on the internet or read any more articles related to our situation. If I come across something I want to look up or read, I'll send it to him so he can filter out the pertinent information and pass it on to me. Hopefully that will keep me mostly sane. ;)
As of today, I am 22w4d. Lots of people have been wondering how things are going, so I made a Caring Bridge site to post updates. Fridays are my week 'turnover' day for this pregnancy, so my plan is to post there weekly to at least say how far along we are. Otherwise, consider that no news is good news!
Our main project this week was to revamp the goat shed to separate our poultry from the goats. We plan to put our goats and dog together, so we need the poultry in a well-contained separate area.
We clipped the chickens' wings hoping to keep them from flying over the fence. I didn't clip them close enough the first time, so we had to redo it.
Since we caught the birds, I checked to see how close they are to laying.
The goats have been loving the remains of the fire pit. They sit and chew their cud there:
Give themselves backscratches:
And dig for snacks? Svetlana actually used her horn for digging, but switched to her hooves before I could take a picture.
The kittens are hunting now. They still enjoy eating their cat food. Normally, they don't get this much food, but G didn't want them to run out when we were gone over the weekend, so he went a little overboard.
