Howdy folks! Boy it has been a minute!
Welcome back, Three Hearts Farm! How have you been these last 2 1/2 weeks?
My goodness has it really been that long?
Yes it has. We thought Cascadia had arisen and slid y’all off into the Pacific Ocean.
No, it hasn’t but thanks for the healthy perspective. From that point of view things have been going very well indeed!
Glad to hear it. What have you guys been up to?
Boy, Let Me Tell You!
We have been all in a ferment over here. I fully intended to make a post to record the cidering process, but got distracted by the National Guard. We took the 2nd batch of hard cider and siphoned it into a tertiary fermentation because there was some light scum on the top of it. It is still pretty lack luster. I think we need some more robust apple flavors. Also, a project we forgot about: sauerkraut. We put that into fermentation early in December, and it was supposed to move into the fridge for eating some time in the 3rd week of December. I don’t really remember anymore. Daddy was on sandbag detail for the National Guard, and Mommy was distracted by everything else so… it molded.
Alas.
I forget what day it was. Sometime in Late December? After Christmas, but before New Year? At any rate, it was in the Octave of Christmas. Daddy and the kids went over to the rectory to help Fr. Lou. The chapel in the rectory, whenever they remodeled it in the 70’s or whatever God-forsaken decade it was, was not provided with insulation. It was just a stud framed wall with shiplap on both sides of the frame. Over Christmas break Fr. Lou got a wild hare and tore all the shiplap off the inside of the wall and stuffed it with insulation. Then he called around (i.e. texted the Men’s group) to see if anyone could help sheetrock. So Daddy and the kids (except Ellie who was at zoo camp) and some of the other men in the group and their kids all came over, measured, cut and sheetrocked. Winnie was so worn out from all the work that she had to take a nap, so we built her a little nest off to the right (our right, Jesus’s left) of the altar, and she snuggled down and went to sleep. It reminded us of Psalm 84. “Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at your altars, O LORD of hosts, my King and my God.”
The day before Daddy left for Texas (January 3rd) we moved the Meishan pigs into the old Hogken coopen to make room in the barn for Iris and the sheep. We hope Iris is pregnant (she won’t stand still long enough for anyone to check) and we want her to have her calf in the barn if possible, especially with all the coyote activity we’ve had recently. A coyote (we assume) got into the chicken yard while Daddy was in Texas and scattered the flock. We are down to 13 hens and one rooster.
So right now they are locked into the house and yard while we have a humane cage trap out for the coyote. So far no luck. We may have to set up trail cams and hunt the darn critter.
Then Daddy went to Texas for Captain’s Career Course.
Mommy will take any excuse to travel, so she enlisted a great Aunt, packed all the kids, and flew them down to Texas to see the sights, and join Daddy over the weekend as his school schedule allowed. They went to parks, and legoland, and the Natural Bridge Caverns. Together we went to the Alamo and the San Jose mission historical site. It was good to be all together, even if only for a couple of days.
Evie, Susie and Seppi 
Ellie and Winnie 
Ellie’s first souvenir is a Texas shaped mood ring. 
When you can’t sleep in a strange place, invade Mommy and Daddy’s bed and kick them out. 
Sts. Peter and Paul in New Braunfels. 
The kids thought the giant rosary in the grotto was cool. 
When the kids get bored in the Greun store, there is plenty of dirt outside to entertain them. 
The Missions National Park is very extensive, we only had time to see the San Jose mission. 
The Rose Window, where the Franciscan Friars used to evangelize the Indians. 
The facade of the mission. 
Inside the church. 
This is still an active parish, thanks to the Archdiocese of San Antonio. 
The inside of the rose window. 
Seppi was disappointed that the well was covered over. 
The gallery that used to lead to the monks’ cells. 
We got to watch this foxy fellow try to catch a squirrel (he failed). 
The mill was fascinating, amazing to see it restored to how it was 350 years ago. 
Oddly, this redoubt with the firing ports was rebuilt based on historical records and accounts, but when they did more research, they discovered that the original mission had no defensive fortifications. 
They loved riding “the bat” out of the cavern. 
Junior Ranger badges! 
The kids were so excited that they have been to Davy Crocket’s birthplace and his death place. 
Unfortunately, the kids picked up a cold on the way down to Texas, and for Winnie that turned into an ear ache by the time they headed home. This was improving over the next weekend, and then Seppi started throwing up. Then Ellie threw up for 36 hours straight.
I swear she lost 5 lbs she didn’t have to lose.
Then Winnie got an ear infection and had to go in to get antibiotics, then she got bullous myringitis and was miserable, then Evie started throwing up, then Winnie got over her ear infection and started throwing up instead…
We thought she was over the throwing up this morning until we went to make her bed and found that she had thrown up on her pillow sometime last night. That explains why her hair smelled like vomit.
As a result, we have not been back to the farm for any real length of time since getting back, other than doing chores and harvesting veggies for dinner. Oh yeah, our oven died.
For a family that does as much baking as we do, this is pretty limiting. I am not sure how a three-year-old oven burns out its mother board and sensor. Yeah we do use it a lot, at least 7-10 times per week, but the idea of an oven that is not designed to last 20 years of daily use is mind boggling to us. We are seriously considering downgrading (upgrading?) to a woodfired stove or an aga. If we could find a 1960’s electric oven that would fit our space we would probably go with that. Modern made-in-China electronic crap can’t stand up to the level of use we demand.
Fortunately, Mommy found a counter-top oven on clearance, which can fit two loaves of bread. It will cover us until we can get the components to fix the old new oven.
And that’s where we are now.
On the bright side, the piggies are still growing beautifully!
So welcome back! Keep us in your prayers and we will try to get our feet back under us and get back to work until the National Guard (or whatever) strikes again.
Little Farm in the Big City 