The Little Joys

Just a quick post to honor my favorite holiday,  Thanksgiving.  Here's a pictorial peek at the past couple of weeks, and some of the things that have brought me such joy.  

Meet Elizabeth, the most docile, sweet, soft, and beautiful chicken.  She is sleeping on Caeley's knees, soaking up the sun on one of the warm days we had recently.  She likes to be cradled like a baby, belly-up, and scratched on her neck.  It puts her right to sleep!

See what my children look like when they are unsupervised?  Apparently they have the Photo Booth program on the iPad down pat!

We started taking the chickens out of the garage for exercise.  They were really scared at first, and used me as "base."  I certainly don't mind being "mommy hen."  They don't call me Chicken Lady for nothing!

By far the best picture I've ever taken.  This is THE reason I love fall and I love living where we live.  This is the church we were married in and this is one of the last trees around that still has leaves.  

If I had had something better than my iPhone with me, these pictures could've been really cool!

Crunchy, colorful leaves!

Stay a while!

The Grand Applesauce Adventure!  My first time making applesauce.  Spent all day Saturday with two of my friends and we got about 80 quarts done!!  I can see why families, particularly mothers and daughters, aunts and grandmothers, etc. were so close in the olden days.  Spending all day together at tasks like this gives you lots of time to talk, tell stories, and learn about each other!

The chickens being introduced to the garden and helping fertilize before Spring!

Can you see 5 chickens?

Meet Frightful and Nelly.  Two of the biggest scaredy cat chickens ever.  But they have cool feathers, so we'll let it slide.  (Frightful got her name because her feathers have grown in all weird--they stick up on end instead of laying flat.   She looks frightful and acts frightful!   Nelly is named after the phrase "Nervous Nelly.")

FINALLY OUT OF THE GARAGE AND ONTO GRASS!  I was going to wait another week to move them, but the temperatures look decent this week, and we were ready to have them OUT.   Our garage was beginning to smell pretty nasty.  The chickens were completely confused after the move.  Here they are wondering what is going on.  

Their new feeder and waterer, which they won't knock over about 50 times a day.  They are also big enough so I won't have to refill them 2 or 3 times a day like I was doing with the chick feeder and waterer!

The view from the brooding area down the ladder into the caged area.

These Leghorns are so precocious---always the first to try new things, the first to come over when called, the first to get the sunflower seed snacks.  They need a bit more taming, though, and are super prone to flying away.  I am anxiously awaiting the day when their bodies are a little heavier and their wings can't take them so far!

Friends by the First Fall Fire! 

Lunch at Panera--one of our favorite "city treats."

I hope that you have found joy in some of the little things in your life lately!

Relishing Sage Spirituality

I've truly been meaning to post something less crunchy, less country, and more Catholic on the blog.  When I'm falling asleep at night, I think of all the things I could write about.  And then I'm stricken with fear.  Fear that I'm not smart enough, not educated enough about my faith to say anything that makes any sense or is "right" theologically.  Or I'm nervous that what I have to say won't come out right!  I am gifted to have so many friends who are either very spiritually mature, or who "do" theology or the Bible as their professions, and sometimes even both!  (Can you imagine how lucky???!!!)  While this is a wonderful inspiration to me, it has also given me a sort of complex about my own spirituality.  I know that I shouldn't let  those feelings hamper my enthusiasm to share my faith here, but it has.  In the past couple weeks, I've come to really appreciate Moses' hesitation when God tells him that it's his job to go to Pharaoh and personally request the freedom of the Israelites.  He says, "If you please, Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past, nor recently, nor now that you have spoken to your servant; but I am slow of speech and tongue." (Ex 4:10)  Like the Lord tells Moses, I have been waiting for some inspiration, for God to "teach me what to say" and give some idea of how to share my faith on my blog in a way that seems natural for me.  I DO truly love the stories of how people find their faith, grow in their faith, and encounter God.  I think this is what makes me love my Saturday morning Bible study so much.  But faith journeys are such personal things, and I think it's harder for me than I thought to be a public "witness."

Since my inspiration hasn't come yet, I'll put my tongue in my cheek and talk about sage.  Not as in "a wise person," which is what I'd like to be, but the herb.  I tried my hand at drying some sage in my dehydrator and it turned out so well!  It took WAAAYYY longer than the instruction manual said it was going to take, but I am super excited that I never have to waste any of my herbs if I don't want to.  It was a fair amount of work, as is any type of food preservation.  (I'm just starting to learn about all this stuff, and it is really giving me such a respect for women who HAD to do this in the olden days just so the family could survive the winter!)  It was also shocking to me how little sage I got from what looked like such a large clump that I cut from the plant.  I had nine trays full of leaves, and got two normal sized spice jars out of it.  Luckily, I have an enormous sage plant, and could get at least another three or four rounds out of it and still have enough to (cross fingers) overwinter in the hoop house.
 
I finished my second food preservation experiment today.  For the first time, I saved all my green tomatoes from certain destruction in the compost pile.  With the burst of hot weather, and then all that rain, I actually had a fair number of them, and hated to chuck them.  I googled a recipe for green tomato relish and decided to try it.  Although my quantities were completely estimated (I had three full flower pots of green tomatoes, and wasn't going to count them all out!), it turned out SO yummy.  It's tangy, sweet, slightly spicy and smokey, and was the perfect condiment on my leftover meatloaf sandwich during the game today.  The best things about making this relish: I could do all the chopping with my Cuisinart and didn't need to core more than a few of the tomatoes because they were so small.  And I was also able to use up all my green peppers and mini-bell yellow peppers, which I was afraid would go to waste because they were so small and so green.  I'm very proud that I didn't waste so much hard garden work, and can't wait to share the first (or last?) fruits of my harvest with friends and family.  I think this will end up being a yearly tradition!