Bliss. Bliss. Bliss.
We’ve been taking a “home” vacation the last week and a half. (Well, I have. BH has been working.) That means avoiding the computer, reading for fun, not research, and doing all the little projects around the house I’ve been wanting to do, but haven’t made the time for.
Like becoming a domestic goddess.
I went through this phase before, when I was a stay-at-home mom with a toddler and an infant. I had a garden, fruit trees, and a woodpile. I baked and canned and sewed. And then life got complicated for about twenty years. BH and I have taken vows to simplify, simplify, simplify our lives, and spend our energies doing the things that have meaning for us; trying our very best to avoid the rat-race that life often seems to becomes.
So… my vacation! (so far, I am still taking this weekend off, too.)
It has mostly been spent in the kitchen, playing pioneer. I turned a bushel of peaches into…
… a dozen quarts of canned peaches, a dozen tiny jars of peach chutney and a whole bunch of peach preserves.
Then I turned a pot of tomatoes and boxes of blackberries into
spaghetti sauce base and blackberry jam.
Once I got started, I couldn’t stop.
I made deviled eggs and froze massive amounts of blueberries.
I knit a warm vest that will go to a child who could really use it, thanks to the amazing people at Warm Woolies. (Thanks to my friend Martha, and our friend Elvira, for telling me about Warm Woolies.)
I went back to the farmer’s market for more tomatoes and brought home fresh dill and cucumbers.
The tomatoes are in the process of becoming chili base.
And the cucumbers are being fermented into old-school fermented dill pickles. They went in this crock with a bunch of spices and garlic and dill and vinegar. For the next three weeks, I am supposed to scoop off the foam from the top of the crock and make sure the dog doesn’t stick her nose in it. If the crock doesn’t explode or catch fire, in three weeks, I’ll be canning the pickles.
Our wood arrived!!! (Winter is never far from our thoughts up here.)
BH ran the splitter for a day until all the hunks were of manageable size. (We received nearly nine cord.) If it cools down a little this weekend, we’ll stack it.
That’s all for now. My stuff on the stove is getting ready to bubble over. What have you been up to?