Farm Friday

Source:  Amazon.com

I hope everyone had a happy and productive start to the new year.  We ended up unexpectedly having our granddaughter for another long weekend - we took her home on New Year's Eve.  And our daughter returned from her birthday celebration in New York.  She and I have been trying to make up lost time by watching the new-to-us season of NCIS (we watch on DVD so are always a season behind).  

We seem to be having yet another "mild" winter - not mild to this Southern California/South Florida girl but mild for Virginia.  The positive side is that we're still getting produce from the garden - broccoli, cabbage, rainbow chard, collards.  The negative is that the bugs - both those that haunt the gardens and those that haunt us - will be back with a vengeance come spring.

I'm been on a decluttering kick (again), trying to eliminate things from our house that we haven't used in the last year or so.  I have taken some inspiration from Bea John son and  the Zero Waste Home.  Of course, we'll never get down to that level of minimalism and waste reduction but I want to get to a level that is right for us.

On a sad note, we lost two of our goats this past week.  We don't know what happened, although one seemed to have a broken leg or hip and the other just never seemed to thrive.  Boer goats can be very frustrating; even our vet said he dislikes them because you often don't know they're even sick until it's too late.  Rowan, on the other hand, seems to be recovering nicely from his wound and I suspect he likes showing off his scar.

I continue to bake fresh bread on a regular basis and, since we really don't eat sandwiches, I haven't needed to buy store bread in a while.  As we speak, I'm also making a blueberry lavendar compote to try on the bread.  Blueberries and lavender, two of my favorite things.

I also started experimenting with sprouting and have decided to make it a regular part of our diet.  Sprouts are easy to grow and packed with nutrition - and a great way to add more fresh food to a winter diet.  I'm coveting the strainer lid pictured above as right now I'm using cheesecloth on my sprouting jar.  I actually have a couple of designated sprouters - one of clay and one of plastic - but I've found that I prefer using an old fashioned mason jar.  (I just might have to treat myself to one or two of those lids and declutter those sprounters.)

Have a great weekend!