The busiest summer yet

Bubba and I looked at the calendar the other day, searching for a weekend that didn’t have anything scheduled on it. We found three of them before October 7th.

That might explain some of the lack of communication via the blog so far this summer. Its not for a lack of having things to write about or say. Its just a lack of time to sit down and write them out and put together the photos and such.

Ya’ll know how that goes right? The Summertime vortex that sucks up all of the free space/time around you and before you know it you’re standing at the edge of Fall trying to figure out where summer went?

(I see you nodding your head) Glad I’m not the only one.

So. How are you all? Enjoying your Summer vortex?

Bubba and I are soaking up the last of months of just us. We are excited for the fall, but we aren’t wishing it to get here any faster than necessary. We kind of like just being two and we’ve been really spoiled to have this much time together without being responsible for the living and well being of another. So we’re soaking up the summer, working our butts off and trying to remember to have fun just a few more times before we start the fun of three.

Things we’ve been up to so far:

- CSA: This was a new adventure for us this year. Each week nearly 20 brave households in our community are picking up boxes of fresh produce that we are either growing or procuring from local sources. This is probably one of the most stressful projects Bubba has ever worked on knowing that people are investing their hard earned money on our efforts to grow produce to feed their families. So far, so good- we think, and there is much more to come yet this summer. We are already taking notes and making plans for improvements/adjustments for next season.

- Meat chickens: Also a new adventure this year and we have another round in the works now. We had such a positive response to our first round of pastured meat chickens we are on schedule for another round to be available for purchase in about 5 weeks.

- Pigs: We have several party pigs this summer that are getting ready to finish up and then our larger, full-sized hogs that will go to many community households this fall. At this point, I’ll be delivering the child that’s been rolling around in my belly and then spending my maternity leave butchering to make sure everything is put up before the Thanksgiving holidays. Its a new strategy in loosing the baby weight- someone call People Magazine now tell them all the celebrities are going to be doing it and I STARTED THE TREND. Take that Paleo diet.

- Classes: Several of you have asked about canning classes. No you haven’t missed them, I simply haven’t been able to schedule them. Everything in the valley is weeks late in production this year, and often the seasons are so short, when they do arrive its easy to miss them. Remember strawberries this year? No- well they were pretty much an overnight crop so if you didn’t get them one day, you missed them. I was just thankful that my gramma offered to make my strawberry jam for me this year, I would have never gotten any otherwise. All that to say, those of you who want to make pickles and can peaches and get some later summer fruit jams in- classes are coming. I’ve been talking with local farms about schedules for pickling cucumbers and peaches this week.

So for my last 10 weeks (or so) of pregnancy you can find me living fully in the summer vortex because soon enough it will be over, and life is going to change dramatically.