Excerpts from a Journal Junkie

from the family journal . . .

. . . our 15 year-old daughter raised $104.00 for the Humane Society Mutt Strut fundraiser.

. . . I have been taking my 15 year-old parking lot driving, and now on 2 lane highways (gulp!).
 

. . . it was nice to see the girls playing a board game recently.


. . . spent a day taking school photos of my 15 year-old daughter.  It's been nice on the pocketbook, to take these photos myself.



from the homesteading journal . . .

. . .froze two more quart bags of peppers from the garden, dug up the last of the red potatoes and sweet potatoes.  Picked another strainer full of peppers.  There are still two more rows to pick from.

...made homemade dog treats in my dehydrator. The dogs loved these. 

 (These two photos were from May of 2012)

...coming to an end on cleaning the wood barn.  We let someone borrow the wood splitter, so we are splitting by hand until it's returned.  The farm truck is broke down, so we have to fix that before we haul more wood. Not a great start for fire wood this season, but we'll get it cut.

 Our one black walnut tree was recently trimmed by the city.  It is right under the utility wires, and they spent the summer trimming most trees.  We feared they would cut this tree completely down, as they were with others.  My 10 year-old said to me "Do I have to chain myself to the tree?"  Thankfully, they just trimmed it, and it may actually help it produce better next year.  We picked up a bag full of walnuts for harvesting and for making a dye.

I picked a strainer full of sugar snap peas, some heirloom lettuce that reseeded itself twice now, and some organic swiss chard (which I blanched and froze).




I am still getting herbs, so decided to dry more lavender, spearmint and lemon.  I have plans to make a tea,







 
from the handicraft journal . . .

. . .our 10 year-old daughter brought home orders for 4 Team Spirit crocheted  scarves.