Today is Doug's last day off to hunt. He got his buck yesterday, but Tay hasn't gotten his yet, so they are back out, along with a friend from the other side of the mountains. (home!)

Tori and I are cooking deer steaks, mashed potatoes, bread drenched in olive oil and broiled to get crusty, and a nice salad containing the last of my baby squash and various tomatoes. I planted so many varieties I lost track of what they were!

I started up another sourdough starter with kefir, water, and one part rye flour to one part wheat, freshly ground. I think I need to focus on the health of my family again. It's hard to stay diligent when there are so many distracting things going on.



After church the day stretched out, to be enjoyed lazily with books and capuccinos, but I still didn't settle in. Still homesick, I'm afraid. I love this home, and the country life, but it would be different, and better, if we had friends and family around. This house is too big for just us, and the holidays looming ahead like things to avoid instead of to celebrate. I'm grateful for my children, and I'd rather be with them than anybody, but I know they get lonely too. Maybe in a few years we can move back home. That's the plan. Until then, I remind myself to "grow where I'm planted" and be grateful. I am!

So many times people email me and ask if country life is really everything I thought it would be. The answer is yes...and no. It's better. We just have the strange circumstance of being completely alone out in this part of the state. I do miss our friends and family. I would miss our home and animals if we moved away though.

I suppose one thing I have learned is community and family are really very valuable and it's wise to not take them for granted. I think it's time for a daytrip back home to visit.

Fall is so lovely here. The air smells of ripe apples and the sun is still shining like crazy! The days are warm and the nights are cold enough for a cozy fire! It's the best season.

It's time for me to focus on my farm here now. We have gotten the bulk of the paperwork done for our adoption, and now I feel I can focus some energy on my home again.

I need to deworm all the goats and give them their BO-SE shots. The girls are all settled (bred) so that's out of the way and actually done early for me.

I plan on cutting my herbs and bringing them in the house to wash and then dehydrate for winter use. I also take all the leftover tomatoes in the garden and either freeze them or dehydrate them. We have a giant pumpkin that is on display but soon will become a snack. We love to roast the seeds with some of the "guts" still on them- yummy!

The guys are busy hunting so the freezer will be full for the winter months, and the birds are already butchered, so it's a matter of relaxing by the fire in the afternoons for me with a good book or THE Good Book, while the older kids ride their horses with the neighbor kids and the youngest boy plays legos at my feet.

It's a good life, and I can't wait until next winter when I have two more children here by the fire with me. I love my children, they are my best friends, and funnest companions. It will be good to have the blessing of more. I imagine next winter we will keep warm with red chile -laced chicken and fish soups over rice, African-style! Never boring around here.

It seems like making Feta cheese and having "school" days with the kids is about all we can handle these days. Then I thought about that and realized we do a whole lot more besides.  We never have a "lazy" day by most standards. There's not a day that we don't have to do chores and that iclude manual labor in the barn.

Very different life than we had three years ago before we moved here. For one thing I didn't make cheese! Didn't own any livestock to care for, and when we wanted to be lazy the dog did too. Here the animals all demand attention still No day off!

I have used the Feta recipe from fiasco farms (link on my sidebar) becasue she uses 3 gallons of milk in her recipe, and I prefer to make alot. It takes all day, it might as well be alot at once. Sure is tasty. I made it with lipase this time, for a more flavorful, aromatic cheese. (more stinky) I put the cheese in jars with olive oil, garlic, rosemary and basil when it's been cut and cured for 48 hrs. Yum!

Some of you may remember our search for the perfect livestock guardian dog. May never find that! But...I did trade a bred Nubian doe for an Anotolian/G.Pyrenese cross today. I'll get the pup in the middle of October. Hopefully that will eventually solve the coyote problem. She'll be too tiny to help this winter, but hopefully by next kidding season she will at least look too big to bother with! I'll get her spayed, so she won't want to roam.

Well, the kids and I have alot on the agenda tomorrow, and we still need to read aloud Adam and His Kin, by Ruth Bechick before bed.

In the morning there will be fresh bread made with the whey from cheesemaking today, but not before two cups of the best coffee ever- Pumpkin Spice with goat's milk! yay! I'm so happy the pumpkin spice coffee is back in stock! It's the little things in life, the small comforts that I enjoy more than anything big or exciting. Guess I'm boring.