I always knew she wasn't meant to be tall. She was the daintiest little baby you ever did lay eyes on and quite unlike her older and younger sister.Good things come in small packages and I LOVE this small package ;--)
Yeah for duct tape!
An interesting side note: Every time I post anything about the wart I get a drove of new readers. I have this gadget on this blog that tells me who reads and approximately where they live and thus I can guess who they might be. (Hi Katie, Tina, Sharon, Melissa, Dad, Julie, Yvonne and everybody else...
) It tells me what words people googled that led them to my blog. The two most often googled words that led random people here are: Plantars Warts and African Tumbu Fly! Unfortunately for the random readers they aren't finding a lot of help here, but I will vouch for duct tape on the wart. The gadget also tells me if you came to my blog via some other site. I know when Jason visits because he always links from his blog, etc... it's fun. It adds interest and it lets me know if I am actually communicating with friends and not just journaling life for myself ( which was the original intent).
The gadget also taught me a few things. I learned to use * in words I don't want googled. I learned not to use first and last and town names all together. Once someone googled a friend's name and town and it led them to my site. I was beside myself. Turns out this friend wrote a comment on my blog listing the town she lives in and her email address includes her full name. Whew! At least I wasn't at fault for that. Another time someone googled pr*tty girls and they landed on my site. They did not find what they were looking for, but I learned something valuable and now I use * often. I'm all for safety.
This gadget can be wrong sometimes about where a reader lives. In fact it lists me as living in city that isn't very close to here. It lists the server city, actually, and our server is from out of town. All my friends who use the same server as me are pretty anonymous. I can't tell which of my 6 friends who uses the server is reading. Sometimes it will tell me 8 people from this server visited, but it's a guess as to who they might be.
Sometimes it drives me crazy. Pray tell - who are you that visits from Denver? And Poland and Spain?
Well, back to business. The cherry pitter is calling my name.
I made a yummy salad tonight from the garden. It had green onions, red sails lettuce, swiss chard and beet greens. I made up some ranch dressing from scratch and threw in some chives. I had a few leftover cooked shrimp that Rod had caught and sent down for me. Fresh shrimp are SO good! This is the first time I've had swiss chard and I really like it!
Tonight I started moving dirt into the last two garden beds. I filled up the skinny one first to satisfy that part of me that needs to have immediate gratification. Then I hauled a few loads into the big bed - I have a ways to go on that one.
Once the skinny bed was full, I planted eight of the red currant bushes that I rooted from thinnings this spring. I just had them in water to see if they would get roots - which they did! I have 18 more of them that I think I will plant in pots for now until I decide where they should go.
Last night I potted up some strawberry starts. The runners take over the garden paths pretty quickly - I and just hate to pulll them up and throw them in the compost, seems like such a waste. So I dig up the ones that really have roots and plant them in little 3" pots. I also try to pot as many extra runners as I can. I set out a bunch of little pots on a bench at the end of the strawberry bed. I picked up some runners that had little plants starting and put one in each pot, using a rock to hold the runner down until the plant establishes some roots. Once the plant is secure, I will cut it from the runner. Then I will start again with more pots. Strawberry plants make a good barter item :o)
I've been thinking about trying to propagate some blueberry bushes. There are some really productive ones over by one of the storage buildings. I have some powdered rooting hormone that I could use, or I may trim some willow branches from the tree across the street and try that. Maybe I should try both and see which one works best. There are blueberry bushes everywhere along the side of the road, but it would be nice to have a good, productive patch of my own. Then I won't have to worry about someone else finding my favorite picking spot :o)
Things look pretty good in the garden. The red currants are just starting to turn pink. I have two baby zucchini. The potato plants look good. I pulled up some radishes and green onions and sent up to Rod in Skagway. The strawberries are loaded with unripe berries and more blossoms. The raspberry patch is buzzing - lots of bumble bees on the blossoms. The new rhubarb patch looks great - I think the plants must have reached down into the layer of chicken manure I put in that bed - they have really taken off in the last week. In the greenhouse, I have one little green pepper and a bunch more babies just starting to form. Nothing on the cucumbers yet, but they are getting bigger - I need to put up a trellis for them. The 3 tomato plants are getting huge - there are 6 little fruits forming now. I notice though that some of the leaves are turning yellow, brown and dry on the ends. I need to look that up and see what is going on with them - must be something about being too cold, too much water, or not enough ventilation is my guess. I picked some mint leaves and calendula blossoms and dehydrated them to use in my soaps. The chickens are doing good - getting only 3 or 4 eggs per day though. If they don't pick up soon, we will be putting them in the freezer.
Canning cherries...and cherries... and cherries. there seems no end to the cherries. we decided to do an
experiment and make cherry turnovers. It didn't work very well. the juice got on the edges of the dough and so they wouldn't stay closed. 
Kugan:
still more dough! I talked mom into making vegan piggy in the blankets.
the pile of dough was getting pretty small
then we made pizza yumm!
then we made sesame bread sticks.
and the pile of dough? It was gone!
I also made bread today.
all in all this is what it amounted to.
Christina
We are very proud of our first tomato of the year! Christina and I split it.
Christina and I picked these cherries yesterday with a little help at the end. I was suppose to send one box to Katie this morning, but I think in this morning's rush, Steve forgot it. Christina was kind of doodling along while we were picking when she noticed how full my bucket was getting and verbally processed the fact that her bucket wasn't near as full. ( Everything about Christina is verbal!) I just commented that that was probably a good reason not to hire an 11 year old. She is so used to doing everything with her sisters this job of theirs has been a bit of a trial. Anyway, after that little exchange I was hard put to keep up with her. The boxes really started to fill up fast from then on.
I recently made vanilla ice cream and it was delicious!! I wanted to share my recipe with you. You can now find all my ice cream recipes (eggless recipes and non dairy too) and ice cream making directions here: http://www.thefamilyhomestead.com/makinghomemadeicecream.htm If I have more recipes to post I will be adding them to that page.
Vanilla Ice Cream
6 eggs
3 cups cane juice crystals
2 T vanilla (only the real stuff)
2 c. whole cream
Whole Goat Milk, as much as needed to fill ice cream maker container (whole cow milk will work too.. :)
1 T arrowroot powder (helps make the ice cream smooth.. but this is optional if you don’t have any)
In a big mixer (like a Kitchen Aid or Bosch) mix together (with the wire whip) the eggs and cane juice crystals until light and lemony colored. Add vanilla and mix again. Add cream and arrowroot powder (if using). When all of this has mixed together completely pour it into your 1 gallon ice cream maker container. Add whole milk until you reach the "fill line" on your ice cream maker container. Follow the instructions that came with your ice cream maker or click on the above link for general instructions.
We are having taco salad for dinner tonight. I always cook up my hamburger and add taco seasonings to it before adding it to my salad. I realized this morning I was out of taco seasoning and it was time to make more. This is another product that I make myself now. We are not real big fans of the taste of the taco seasonings I use to buy from my health food co-op and I wonder about MSG in it as well (the grocery store stuff definitely is full of yucky things typically). I recently was reading an article (wish I could remember where now.. maybe Dr.
Taco mix is so easy to make. It takes less than 15 minutes to make up a batch, the recipe doubles easily. I usually make a double batch but today I did not have enough dried onion, so I settled for a single batch.
Bulk Taco Seasoning Mix
¾ c dried onions
½ c chili powder
¼ c salt
3T garlic powder
3T cornstarch
3T ground cumin
1T to 3T cayenne pepper (depending on how hot you like it)
Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Store in plastic or glass container with a lid.
It takes approx. 3T of this mix to equal one packet that you would buy in the store.
This recipe makes about 2 cups. I store it in a canning jar in my cupboard.
Emily and Brianna hard at work. You can see why they are tired after 8 hours.
Paul supervising 
Loads of cherries. Becky was run over by the four-wheeler trailer yesterday. If it had been one of the girls their leg would have snapped. Thankfully, Becky was walking when I saw her.
Vanessa riding the trailer with a load. Her crew leader told me she was the hardest worker on his team. I blew it off as him trying to make her feel good, but when I commented to her about it she said, "I have no idea what his measuring standard is but he keeps saying I push the crew hard and fast". She was totally impressed with the Hispanic pickers. She said they work HARD and don't take a lunch break. They arrive at 4:30 AM and WORK. One family picked 100 lugs yesterday. At $7 a lug that's not a bad income. You do the math! Pictured here are bins... lugs are smaller and dumped into the bins.
Christina and I picked a bunch of the vans which the owners have no market for this year. I have more than one kind of pitter. This one is fast but it shreds the cherries so I was experimenting with cherry preserves.
My hands in 15 minutes...
Ready for canning
The set up outside. Hubby was having a paranoia attack about canning. He took care of a botchulism patient all day and it is a pretty serious matter. I explained that I know all about botchulism. Botchulism doesn't grow in canned fruit or pickles because of the acid. I also explained that I don't can vegetables and I add citric acid to my tomatoes. I also had to assured him that I follow the state recommendations on all my canning. I have a booklet with all the proceedures and such laid out that I follow. I told him I would get an updated booklet from the State agricultural department if that would make him feel better. I really do need to get a new seal for my pressure canner for doing tomatoes.
Ready to eat. I had the girls try them with toast and peanut butter at breakfast at 5:45 this morning. They loved them. So, guess what Christina and I will be doing this morning?!
! If I were her I would want people to know why they are praying for me and then I would put the pictures in a chest somewhere to remember, but not look at everyday. Chelsie and family are asking for prayers for another 16 year old girl in the same hospital with the same syndrom. The only difference is this girl Haley is not doing as well as Chelsea. 
35% of her body is like her face. You can imagine there is a lot of pain. She says when she gets out of there she would like to go back and help other kids with this problem someday. She still has spunk!