Yellow Milk?

Sybil has been at our homestead for about a week and she's gradually getting more adventurous in her eating. I've both seen her eating grass in the pasture and noticed it in her milk. 

The fresh milk we get has stayed the same color, but the freeze dried milk has more of a yellow tint. My theory was that the higher nutrients in the pasture were causing the color change. 

I asked Google to make sure:

Why Goat Milk Stays White

• Beta-Carotene Conversion: Fresh pasture grass contains beta-carotene, a yellow-orange pigment. When cows eat grass, this pigment passes into their milk, giving it a golden-yellow hue. [1, 2]
• Vitamin A Metabolism: Goats (like sheep) metabolize beta-carotene much more efficiently. Their bodies convert the pigment into colorless Vitamin A instead of passing the yellow color into the milk. [1, 2, 3]
• Consistent Appearance: Because of this efficient conversion, goat milk remains stark white whether the animals eat stored hay or graze on fresh, green spring pasture. [1]

Hmm, interesting, but doesn't explain the color change. Maybe because ours is freeze dried? 

"While a goat's body normally prevents fresh milk from turning yellow, the process of freeze-drying changes the rules entirely. When you alter your goat's feed, you alter the concentration of certain nutrients and fats that freeze-drying exposes to plain view.

Diet Shifts Overwhelm the "Vitamin A Switch"- A rapid shift to a much richer feed (such as lush green grass, clover, or fresh alfalfa high in carotenoids) can temporarily disrupt the goat's high-efficiency conversion of beta-carotene into colorless Vitamin A. When this happens, trace amounts of yellow carotenoids slip past the liver and bind to the milk fat globules. While you won't see this in the liquid milk, the dehydration process concentrates these fats, making the yellow hue visible in powder form." 

It also said the color could be from higher riboflavin levels, changes in fat globule size, or a higher lactose (milk sugar) level (causing a faint Maillard reaction -caramelization between milk sugars and proteins). 

Fascinating!

Her milk production has dramatically dropped. Friday morning she produced half what she started at when we got her. Apparently this shift happens for the first 1-2 weeks in a new place. We just gotta hang in there and ride it out. 

If she does end up drying out, I don't think either G or I will be terribly sad about it. Dealing with all the milk has been challenging. Even so, I would probably feel a bit of failure that we couldn't acclimate her well enough to keep milk going. The environment change she's adjusting to is pretty massive, so it wouldn't surprise me. 

We do want the lamancha genetics in our herd, so we plan to keep her around long enough to breed/kid, even if we don't keep her specifically long-term. 

Garden Update

The short answer - zucchini and cucumbers. Everything else is slow. 

The longer answer - the plants are staying small, but there are small veggies beginning to form. Peppers are slow. Tomatoes are slow. Herbs are doing okay. 

My melons and squash have avoided the mildew from the past two years! I actually have a couple growing on the trellis. I tied them up in a net so they don't break off the vine prematurely. 

My poor cucumber plants (three varieties) have been attacked by squash bugs. We treated them with diatomaceous earth and a soapy spray. One variety is completely dead, even with treatment. The other two are hanging in there. They've been strong enough to send out new growth on the bottom even while the tops are decimated by bugs.

I'll end on a fun note. Weeks ago, I accidentally broke off a couple branches of my cherry tomato plant. I was so annoyed because they had a bunch of fruit on them. Wasted! 

I couldn't bear to throw them on the compost pile, so I left them in the garage. This week, a pop of red caught my eye. They're ripening!

Now they're in the house for us to eat. 😀

Freshly Milled Flour

I finally got around to milling the three different grains we purchased for home milled flour. 

Hard red and hard white- used in baked goods with yeast. Soft white- used in baked goods with baking soda or powder. 

Freshly milled flour lasts about a week at room temp, two months in the fridge, and six months in the freezer (freshness and nutrient quality). For ease of use, I ground a half gallon worth each and currently store them in the fridge. The whole berries are in the pantry in glass jars, and the rest of the bulk bags are in the fruit room under the stairs. 

Using them is going to take some adjustments. I made a roux for homemade chicken wild rice soup. The soup was fantastic. Definitely saving that recipe. The milled flour wasn't noticeable. 

I made a batch of carrot zucchini muffins, and you can definitely tell the flour is different. They're very crumbly and have a grainy texture. I should probably sift the flour or grind it a second time to get it finer. 

I also made a pie crust for pastie pie. So hard to roll out!!! Worse than the gluten free crust! Sticky and crumbly. 

You'll notice I attempted the cookie cutter top crust again. My flowers are blobs this time. (And I ran out of dough.) 😜

Everywhere I've read says that freshly milled flour is more absorbent and you'll need to increase the water. I only found that to be true with the muffins. They also say that the batter/dough need time to rest so the gluten can relax/absorb the liquid/do it's thing. I definitely didn't do that with the pie crust, so that's probably part of my issue. 

I feel very torn right now because I have favorite recipes that work very well with regular flour; it would be easy to stick with them and give up on the home milling. But I want to give freshly milled flour a chance and fix some of the errors I no doubt am doing. I should probably find someone who's been baking with this kind of flour for a long time and ask them to teach me their ways...

Creative Storage

I've slowly been organizing the laundry room, trying to maximize space and efficiency of storage. This Christmas tree base takes up so much shelf space, it had to go. But where? 

Up top! 

A bungee cord and a nail made it super quick to tuck it away in between the ceiling studs. 

In other news, the chickens enjoyed eating an unripe apple from an unplanted tree after it tipped over from the wind...

And finally, we're hosting two Japanese college students for three weeks! They're on a school break right now and are doing a three week program at MSU (kind of like a J-term). Jaron has taken to them well... His first words to them were, "read it!" And he made them sit on the floor with him to read books. 😂 

They arrived last Saturday and are on their third day of classes. We've taken them on a few adventures already - Goofy Goat Farm, sunflower patch, pontoon ride on a MN lake, Pleasant Grove Pizza Farm, and the Yellow Candy Barn. 

The sunflower patch is pretty close to our house. And it's just what it sounds like - a huge field of sunflowers, specifically there as a photo op. We took a couple pictures ourselves. 

Meet Sybil

We bought a goat in milk.  

She is a purebred lamancha (a breed of dairy goat with little nubs for ears), a former 4H show goat. Her previous owners were selling her because she has a little mastitis scarring in one of her udders, and that makes her not great for showing anymore. She still produces about 3/4ths of a gallon of milk a day. 

The other goats were a bit intimidated at first; Sybil is about twice their size.

Jip barked like crazy every time he saw her, probably because she's bigger than he is. She obviously didn't like that. 

We needed to set up a place where she and Jeff could smell each other and hear each other but not see each other just until they got used to each other. I wanted to give the other goats access to the shed while keeping Sybil inside, so we put two boards across the door. 

Eventually she did figure out how to get out of the shed, but by that point the other animals had calmed down some.

A picture to show size perspective. 

Sybil loves people and wants to be wherever they are. Other goats? She could care less. If she hears a door open or a car pull up, she'll come around to that side of the house to see us. She loves to peek in the laundry room window at me. 

This goat has been dry-lotted her whole life, which means that she has never been out on pasture. Her previous owners said they only feed alfalfa because what goats eat can impact the flavor of their milk. 

Sybil didn't love our dry hay in the shed (although I've seen her chewing cud, so I know she's eating). She didn't seem to be eating any of the fresh grass either. 

It's almost like we need to teach her how to be a goat. G led the goats out to the north pasture and then he finally saw Sybil eating the brown, dried up grass. Then she took a tentative bite of clover, then one of chicory. So she's warming up to it. I hope she's watching what the other goats do and copies them. 

As expected, her milk production has gone down a bit in her adjustment to our house. We're still getting just under 3/4ths of a gallon a day. 

I heard on a podcast that immediately chilling the milk will reduce the chances of it being strange-flavored (less time for bacteria to grow), so after G milks, we filter it and put it in the freezer for an hour to quick chill it. 

This is what we did the first night we milked before we got our system down. 

I've freeze dried a bunch to make powdered milk. 

We're hoping to find a few customers who either just want to try it or want to be regulars. 

In the meantime, I'm looking up milk recipes! Chicken wild rice soup, goat milk ice cream, and yogurt are the top recipes I've found so far. 

Cocoon!

Well, my prediction was correct. The cecropia moth made a cocoon the same day we found it! By the time G got home from work, the caterpillar was completely covered. 

He moved off the stick I set him into the tree with and onto a bigger stick to make his cocoon. G is worried the crook of the tree will fill with snow and the caterpillar will die overwinter. I'm hopeful the cocoon will be protected by all the branches and it'll be okay. Time will tell! 

We'll check back in in ten months!!!

Cecropia Moth

We found this GIGANTIC caterpillar in our driveway this morning. 

Cecropia moth, North America's largest native moth, part of the silk worm family. You can see some silk on the caterpillar's legs/the cord.

They live as caterpillars for about one month before making a cocoon they overwinter in for 10 months. As adults, they live for two weeks and don't eat - they don't even have mouths! Their sole purpose is to mate and lay eggs. 

We rehomed this big guy to our maple tree so he can keep eating! 

A quick Google search revealed that he's pretty close to going into cocoon mode: 

"Cecropia moths remain in the caterpillar stage for about 4 to 5 weeks (approximately 30 to 35 days).

Growth and Molting

During this brief period, they grow from tiny, black hatchlings into massive, bright green giants. They go through five distinct growth stages called instars, shedding their skin between each one:

• 1st Instar: Tiny, black, and covered in small bristles.
• 2nd Instar: Turn bright yellow with black spikes.
• 3rd Instar: Become green or bluish-green with yellow, blue, and orange bumps (tubercles).
• 4th & 5th Instars: Grow up to 4.5 inches long, turning a brilliant sea-green with striking red, yellow, and blue knobs.

Once they finish feeding at the end of the fifth instar, they spin their tough brown silk cocoons and begin the long pupal stage, which lasts all through the winter."

Scaled Down Egg Salad and Freeze Dried Herbs

The egg salad was a hit! Unfortunately I wasn't around to witness it; my summer sand volleyball team was in the playoffs that night with a double header (we won our division!) and I missed the whole event. 

But she said that everyone loved the food. I actually got a call from a Saint Mark member who wanted the egg salad recipe. I offered to write it down and bring it to church on Sunday and he said "Oh Emily, I don't think that will be soon enough." He wanted to make a batch that afternoon! So, I scaled the recipe down and brought the recipe and a dozen eggs over to his house. 

If any of you are itching for a scaled down version of the recipe, here you go: 

Makes: About 6–8 sandwiches

• 12 large hard-boiled eggs, peeled and chopped
• ¾ cup mayonnaise (I used Hellman's)
• 3 tablespoons sweet pickle relish (drained if very watery), I added a little more for extra tang
• 2 tablespoons yellow mustard 
• ⅓–½ cup finely diced celery
• ½–¾ teaspoon salt (start with ½ and adjust)
• ¼ teaspoon black pepper

The garden might be slow, but I was able to harvest some herbs. I've heard that freeze drying herbs is super easy and has a great result, so I popped these leaves in the freeze dryer. 

Basil, sage, and bay leaves. 

The freeze dryer app said to skip the prefreeze and have them dried at a lower temperature (95 degrees), so I adjusted the settings. 

I only put the three trays in. Mistake. The machine has sensors in all four tray areas to detect doneness, so when I don't have a fourth tray, it messes up the machines sensors and it doesn't actually recognize when the items are dry. Of course I found that out after the fact. 

When I took the trays out, some of the leaves were completely dry and others were still filled with moisture.

I left the ones that needed more time out to air dry and put the dried leaves in glass jars. 

I'll try freeze drying herbs again when there are more herbs to harvest!

Egg Salad for 70

Our last Saint Mark Summer Night was Tuesday night, theme- Out of This World. 

G and I came up with space themed foods. 

• Crescent moon sandwiches (egg salad on croissants and ham/cheese as an alternative)
• Alien jello cups
• Meteorites (cheese balls)
• Star shaped chicken nuggets 
• Rocket pops

We debated between egg salad and chicken salad, but we have a ton of eggs, so we settled on egg salad. 

We planned food for 70 people, which meant I needed to hard boil 80 eggs. 😳 My mother-in-law gave me the idea to do it in the oven. You crack your eggs into a loaf pan, then put that pan into a larger pan of water (water up to the level of the eggs), creating a bain-marie. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes, boom. Done. 

Well, you still need to chop the eggs and mix in the other ingredients, but the hard work is done. 

Cracking 80 eggs actually went fairly quickly... I had a little helper handing me eggs. 

He was ecstatic the entire time. I counted as we went, and Jaron kept chiming in, "Fourteen! Sixteen! Eggs! Crack!" So proud to be handing me eggs. 🥰

 

It was nerve-wracking at first, but he's been pretty good at handing me eggs when we collect them from the chickens. It helps he can only hold one at a time. 😜 In the kitchen, he only cracked three on the counter, and two of those three were salvageable. 😅 

The poor guy cried when there weren't any more eggs to crack. 

After cooling, I chopped the eggs in batches in my food processor. For about two seconds, I used my hand pastry cutter. That would've taken forever. 😂

The food processor worked better than I expected. I had mixed up the sauce ingredients in a gigantic bowl first:

• 5 cups mayonnaise
• 1¼ cups sweet pickle relish 
• ¾ cup + 1 tablespoon yellow mustard 
• 1½ tablespoons salt 
• 1½ teaspoons black pepper 

And then added the processed eggs, one bowl at a time, stirring each. So easy to mix everything in. 

Jaron wanted to help again, so I let him stir the salad. 

Man, I love that big bowl. 

Last Fair

I judged my last fair of the year Monday afternoon, this time at the Martin County Fair judging 3-5th crafts and fine arts. I've judged for this county for prefair entry days before, but never at the fairgrounds. It was a little toasty in the building, but not unbearable. I dressed for the weather and my table was near an open door so I got a breeze. 

Crafts and fine arts is one of the most popular 4H project areas and the judges are always busy. Martin County is a big county with a solid 4H program, so I expected to be busy. There were four judges in my project area including me. Two judges did the older kids and another judge and I handled the 3-5th graders. 

It went pretty smoothly once I figured out that I had missed the craft section in the front of my judge's binder. I thought there was an error and I just had Fine Arts entries. Crafts and fine arts are actually separate categories, and they were on complete opposite ends of the binder- I thought the papers for both would be next to each other. 

Overall, I didn't see too many projects that wowed me. Lots of diamond art, some button art, some drawings, some clay figurines, a few mini wooden scenes from kits. The most unique entries were a felted wool bowl (the 4Her said he uses it as a hat at home) and a gigantic Lego scene set in Jurassic World. It was about 2ft by 4ft and he said he'd been working on it since January. He had a story to go with the scene, so it wasn't just Legos. Very impressive. He ended up getting champion. 

Crispies

I think I figured out why people put milk on cereal...

Jaron wanted a snack, and he had already had a large variety of snacks earlier in the day, so I was trying to come up with something he hadn't had yet. Rice crispies? Sure. He's older now and shouldn't make too much of a mess, right? 

I scooped him a tiny cup of crispies and handed it to him in his tower. He did okay at first. He held the cup and slurped the dry cereal with his mouth. Then he set the cup down to eat with his fingers. I went back to work in the kitchen. Bad decision. I heard a clattering and saw that he had dumped the cup on the counter and was sliding his hand back and forth knocking the cereal to the ground. So I took the cereal away. 

Then, silly me, I gave it back to him in a suction bowl. My only defense is that he was eating a few I missed so I thought he'd do better if it were in a different vessel. Wrong. He peeled the suction bowl off the counter and dumped it directly on the floor. 

Silly me again, he still seemed interested in eating the pieces I picked up off the floor, so I took him out of the kitchen tower and set him on the floor. He could do double duty and clean up for me while eating snack. Yeah, no. He smeared his hand through the crispies, then stepped on them on purpose crunching them up. So much for cleaning up. I scooped up as many as I could (seriously, how did this many rice crispies fit into such a tiny cup?) and then got out the broom. Jaron wanted to sweep them up himself of course, and had a meltdown that I wouldn't let him hold the big broom. 

I wonder how much of this mess would've been avoided if there had been milk in the bowl holding them all together? 

Aw, who am I kidding? Then I'd have had milk to clean up too! 😂

4H Judging

I judged two county fairs earlier this week, which also contributed to my delays in posting. Oftentimes I judge not-as-popular categories and have a bunch of down time between 4Hers, but both of these fairs kept me busy pretty much the whole time! 

The first was in my home county. I always like judging there because I recognize a lot of the families; a bunch are children of people I was in 4-H with. That and the Murray county fair is one of the best fairs in the state of Minnesota. 😉

Originally, I was going to judge a completely different category. But the 4-H coordinator was having trouble finding someone willing to judge eggs, and she asked me to switch. I figured I could handle that with all the eggs that we've been handling on our homestead, so I said yes. I ended up judging flower gardening (individual flowers and arrangements), indoor gardening (potted plants and fairy gardens), largest vegetable (exactly what it sounds like), vegetable box (a collection of six kinds of veggies with multiples of each veggie, quantity determined by size of produce), vegetable plate (one large or three medium or 6-10 small), fruits (only one 4Her came), herbs (also one entry), and eggs (brown and white... many entries). 

As you can imagine, with all those categories I was kept quite busy. There were a lot of scratches, which are canceled entries. You sign up for how many projects you're taking in May and there's no way to know how your garden will turn out at that point. A bunch of people said that their flowers didn't grow because of the heat. Others said that their "insert vegetable here" didn't grow because of the rain/sun/bugs. So. It's a tough category to do well. 

I've judged flower and indoor gardening before, but never vegetable gardening. It took a couple of 4Hers for me to feel comfortable with the category. The veggie judging was pretty easy once I figured out the requirements. If their items looked uniform, they got a decent ribbon. 

Egg judging was also fairly simple. Make sure the eggs look uniform, don't have bumps on the shells, aren't cracked. You would be surprised how many cartons had a cracked egg in there. I brought along a mini flashlight so I could candle eggs, and I showed quite a few 4Hers their subtly cracked eggs. Hard to argue when you can see the crack lit up through the shell. One boy was absolutely devastated when I pointed out his cracked egg. He had gone through three buckets of eggs to find the perfect ones for the fair. I asked if he lived close to the fair... maybe he could switch it out. He didn't, but he remembered his dad was still at home. He called his dad and said, "Bring every egg we have!" I had him get out of line so I could keep judging and eventually he returned with a full dozen plus one more just in case. I gave him a purple ribbon for commitment to quality. 

You would also be surprised how many people didn't know how to properly store eggs. Eggs should always be stored with the pointy end down. The air sac is on the wide end and that should be up to let the egg last longer. Imagine you put a balloon at the bottom of your laundry basket. What would happen when you put clothes on top? That's what happens when your egg is upside down in the carton; the pressure on the airsac reduces the egg quality much quicker. 

Picking champion and reserve eggs was difficult. There were a lot of beautiful eggs. In the end, I went with the biggest, most uniform eggs, where the 4Her knew about pointy side down and had a good interview. 

The next day, I judged in Nicollet County and did my favorite category- Food and Nutrition. I also judged the most stressful category- Food Preservation. Why so stressful? The rulebook says that 4Hers have to use an approved recipe from one of the three canning/preserving sites for food safety, and a large quantity of entries don't. They bring family recipes and then I have to break their hearts by giving them a lesser ribbon. In the past, I've had to deal with angry parents who didn't read the rule book, and kids crying because their project got a red ribbon. I've also had kids who knew the rules and brought their family recipe anyway. I appreciate the confidence of those kids. But I also wish they'd lead their interview with, "I know this is a non-approved recipe..." so I don't have to worry about how to tell them.

Anyway, judging went very well aside from sugar overload from eating so many sweet things. A couple 4Hers brought savory things, but those were few and far between. I did take pictures of two recipes I'd like to try myself. 

So tiny, almondy, and chewy and crunchy at the same time. Delightful.

Tastes like fudgy box mix brownies.

One recipe I didn't take a picture of, but is still intriguing me is cloud cake. Ever heard of it? It's cake but lightly sweet and with a slightly eggy texture. It's fascinating. I think this is the recipe he used. Maybe I'll make that one someday too. 

Gluten Free Unripe Apple Pie

I planned to make an apple pie for the reunion. Just a simple standard apple pie, aside from using unripe apples. The unripe apples kept me blocked for a while. I didn't know how much sugar to use! 

It's a good thing I waited. At the Friday night gathering, I found out that some members of the family are gluten free. I knew that the other pie offerings were going to include gluten, and since I hadn't made the apple pie yet, I figured I could easily (or semi easily) make it a gluten-free apple pie. 

Chatgpt to the rescue again! 

1½ cups almond flour

1 cup tapioca flour

¼ cup potato starch

¼ cup arrowroot powder

2 Tbsp sugar

½ tsp salt

10 Tbsp cold lard

1 egg

1 tsp apple cider vinegar or lemon juice

2–4 Tbsp ice water

It originally called for 1 and 1/4 cup tapioca flour, but I ran out and had to improvise with the potato starch. It also originally wanted me to use butter, but since I have homemade lard, I wanted to use that. 

The crust came together quickly, and as the recipe cautioned, it was pretty crumbly. It rolled out just fine on the countertop. I thought I would be able to use my pastry scraper to fold it and set it into the pie tin. But it was so delicate that it kept squishing and breaking into pieces. I ended up putting the pieces in the pie tin and squishing them together.

The recipe suggested rolling out the dough between two pieces of plastic wrap, so that's what I did for the top crust. That worked better, but I still wasn't able to get the whole thing on top of the pie. Instead of wasting time messing with it, I took a cookie cutter and cut pieces of crust to lay overlapping on top.

It was much easier to peel up those small cookie shapes and arrange them.

Plus it made the pie look quite fancy!

The crust turned out nice and flaky and had a good flavor. Some people who sampled it after the gluten-free people got their pieces said you would never be able to tell that it was gluten free.

I thought the filling also turned out well- a little tangy, and not too sweet. One suggestion chat GPT had was to sample an apple to see how sweet it was. Why didn't I think of that? 🤦‍♀️ 

The filling recipe:

8 cups unripe apples, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced (I just cored and thinly sliced them... Don't let the picture fool you - they were way too small to mess with peeling.)

3/4 cup brown sugar or maple sugar (if the apples are on the sweeter side, go down to 1/2c sugar)

2 tablespoons tapioca flour (I ground up tapioca pearls in my spice grinder to make flour)

1½ teaspoons cinnamon

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

¼ teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 tablespoons lard, cut into small pieces (I forgot to add this in, didn't seem to make much difference)

I would definitely make this pie again! 

Banana Cream Pie

This past weekend, G's family had a reunion with his aunts/uncles/cousins, and I was asked to make a couple of pies for one of the meals. What kind of pie? G said banana cream for sure. And I still had those unripe apples from our tree, so I decided to make an apple pie too. More on that tomorrow. 

Of course I wanted to make the banana pie from scratch. But what recipe to use? I narrowed it down to two very highly rated recipes. G thought I should make two banana cream because it's very popular, and originally I was going to make both recipes. But time slipped away from me and the filling of recipe #1 (Sally's Baking Addiction) ended up being more than fit in my pie crust, so I got creative. 

To make life easier, I did a graham cracker crust. The pie recipe said to wait for the pudding to cool before pouring it into the crust, but I didn't see why it had to wait, so I poured it in after cooling a few minutes. 

Beautiful. 

There was filling leftover but not quite enough to fill a whole pie. The second recipe (Preppy Kitchen) I wanted to try suggested a layer of bananas, then pudding, then more bananas, then more pudding, then whipped cream. It also suggested variations to keep the crust from getting soggy, for example a layer of jam or nutella. Hey! I still had some homemade nutella in the fridge! 

So I spread a layer of nutella on the crust, then added a layer of bananas. 

By that time, the pudding had cooled significantly and I had to spread it out in the tin. 

Not nearly as pretty. Good thing it would be covered up by whipped cream! 

I waited to put that on right before we left for the meal. I had worried the whipped cream would deflate in the wait before dessert, but the second recipe suggested using powdered sugar to make the whipped cream. Powdered sugar includes corn starch (or arrowroot powder) which stabilizes the cream and allows it to hold longer. Definitely going to remember that tip! It actually held up days later! 

So, overall thoughts on the recipe. Sally's recipe was not overly sweet. The pudding was smooth and very creamy. I really do want to try the second recipe to compare. My nutella experiment met with mixed results. I actually liked it better than the straight banana cream pie. G liked the original. He said the nutella took over the flavor completely.

The original recipe was definitely a crowd pleaser- there were only three pieces left at the end of the night. Nutella banana cream had half the pie left. 

Vacation and Farmfest

It's been a busy couple of weeks and I haven't been able to keep up with my posts! 

My dad, Jaron and I, and my sister and two of her kids went to Ag PhD Day sponsored by Hefty seed. It's an education day for farmers where everything is free- admission, the education sessions, food, and treats. Because of the kids, we didn't sit in on any education sessions this time. The weather was beautiful and we had a great time looking at machinery and playing with farm toys (and enjoying root beer floats and mini donuts). 

The following week we went to Farmfest. This time it was my dad, brother-in-law, and Jaron and me (my sister was planning to come with the kids, but they got sick). It was actually very pleasant with such a small group. Jaron was content to see tractors and equipment everywhere, and the smaller group made it easier to ask questions of vendors and see the things Dad wanted to see. 

Jaron tested out a lawnmower there...

Jaron and I also continued my summer tradition of going on a trip with my college travel friend. We went to Indianola, IA, for the hot air balloon festival. Before we left, the weather forecast looked beautiful. Once we arrived, wind and rain moved in and all the balloon festivities were cancelled every day we were there. 😩 

It was different than usual since she brought her four month old and I brought my 21mo old. We still enjoyed eating out, afternoon ice cream, late night chats, and hiking local parks. 

But our evenings out ended much earlier than usual so the kiddos could get to bed. Our daytime activities also revolved around naptimes and feeding times. Honestly, it was a bit exhausting being the solo parent. 😅 We both have wonderfully helpful husbands. On our way home, we talked about what next year's trip might look like... We both agreed we should find a cute place to stay closer to home and have low expectations about how many activities we'll accomplish on our trip. We'll probably look for a town having a festival around our trip dates, one with nice walking paths and a decent ice cream shop. 😉

Plum Syrup Fail

My poor plum syrup is no more. 😭 

I forgot to tell G to stir it before I left on a three day trip and the plums got moldy. 

Unfortunately, because of the sugar and liquid, if there's any mold, the whole thing has to get tossed. 

Which is really a shame because the second batch had just started to release the juices. 

I talked to a friend of mine with experience making this recipe. I wondered if I had used a faulty recipe. She uses this recipe, which is essentially the same as mine. The main issues with mine were not stirring and using plums that were too ripe. Even though the ones I used weren't ripe, they weren't green enough. The ripe ones mold so quickly, if I would do it again, she suggested I keep it in the fridge to keep the mold from forming until the juices come out. 

Thistle War

I'm pleased to report we are winning our war against the thistles. In the pasture at least. 

Last year we had tons of thistles in this area. G went out many times to cut the flowers off before they turned to seed. The thistles put so much energy into producing flowers, they don't make it over winter, or so the experts say. 

This year, there's clover and grasses. It worked! Jaron and I checked it the other day and were pleased to see just a few. We did chop off the thistle flowers we saw, much to Jaron's delight. "Chop!"

The battle in our garden continues however. The worst corner with thistles looks better, but thistles are popping through the mulch/cardboard. Again, we made sure to chop the flowers off. 

Another potential issue is that the chickens found the garden... 

They've been seen crawling under the garden gate. That's an easy fix. But I'm not sure if they're hopping over the chicken wire too. That will take more work. 

So far the chickens have just scratched around the mulch and pecked a couple peppers. But if they decide to go to town on the rest of our veggies, that will be a major issue. 

Never underestimate your animals is our unofficial motto. I guess that means I better fix the fence. 😅

Shoes Everywhere

There's a shoe problem at our house. Shoes everywhere! Fancy shoes, work shoes, wet weather shoes, casual shoes, sandals... I know it's only going to get worse. 

We have a bench in our entryway with a shelf underneath that's been our shoe home, but we've long outgrown it. I had the idea to add on a second shelf above the first to get double the shoe storage space. The concept is basically my "between the studs" style of shelving. 

To the garage! Lots of spare wood in there. 

While I dug around, I also unearthed a kid work bench set I got at a garage sale last fall. Jaron got to work right away. 

So cute. He's a handy guy! 😉

Back to the project! 

Unfortunately, we didn't have any wide boards long enough to stretch the length of the bench. What about two thinner boards? That should work! So that's what I did. Jaron's work bench also worked as a saw horse in a pinch. 😅

I decided that screwing the long boards onto the side supports ahead of time would be smart. 

It also would've been smart to start the side screws before lifting it into place. It was a little hard to see where I was going. Originally, I plan planned to use one screw and hope that the tightness would keep the shelf from tipping. No such luck. But there was room for a second screw on the cross board of the bench, so that solved the problem. 

Tada! 🥳 Much neater entryway.