Happy Sunday!
Not much has happened in the last three weeks. Ryan's been in Baton Rouge doing some sound work for FEMA, during the recovery process. We've been chatting in the evenings, and boy does he have some interesting stories! But, I will let him tell them when he gets back home. We aren't quite sure when that will be. It could be Tuesday or it could be the 2nd of December. As usual we are slaves to his work schedule.
In other news, we have two new additions to the Suburban Farm - Emilia and Amilia. They live in my office on a high shelf so that the cats won't bother them. We did introduce the girls to Scamp, and she's under the impression that we're keeping very dirty kittens in a cage away from her. She's quite indignant about all of this, and tries to supervise the girls from the floor while chattering at me to let them out. Riley, Porter, and Splats don't seem to care. Greebo likes to sit on top of their cage when I get it down. I'm not sure he understands that there are critters under his butt. And Kismet is unhappy about all this nonsense. As it turns out, the rats are rather fond of the poor puppy. They like to curl up with her in the living room next to the wood stove. I guess she's nice and warm, and doesn't smell of cat. She takes it like a good sport, but looks at me pitifully as she sits trying not to move or squish the girls. The Girls themselves are quite sociable and are warming up to meeting new people. (The kind with only two legs.) They made a great impression on the neighborhood kids who love all of the crazy stuff I do around the house.
The circle is gearing up for Halloween. We have a lot of children who trick or treat in our neighborhood and my next door neighbor, Jerry, and my neighbor across the way, Bob, wouldn't want to disappoint them. They go all out! Jerry took two days off work! There's smoke machines, skeletons, sirens, abandoned cars, people in bushes, gravestones, fake blood, severed limbs, etc. They should sell tickets to this thing!
I guess this year there will also be hay rides! This guy's had his tractor out tooling around the street for the last two weekends, and he's getting to be quite popular. You can't see it in this picture, but he also gives rides to the occasional cat and dog. Ya'll know Ryan and I, and you know that we can out gore anyone here in suburbia - we've got all the equipment. I can mix up the best batches of corn syrup blood in all of Williamsburg, and we have left over props from Final Girls. However, we pulled together a gypsy camp our first Halloween here, and the kids were so excited about the non-scary house that I couldn't bring myself to set up a gore scene. So, since Ryan's gone, I'll set up the camp for the third year in a row.
Its been cooling down enough at night, that I've had to start a batch of green tomato salsa. The tomato plants are starting to drop their fruit and dry up. I don't blame them - it's been chilly. I'm gonna leave everything until it falls off its respective plant, but I don't think we have too many more days before the first frost. I've been pretty successful at keeping the house a nice warm 70 degrees by using the wood stove and a box fan. It's not exceptionally cold out - 60ish in the afternoons - nevertheless I'm feeling quite proud of myself. I have burned through the wood faster then Ryan thought we would, but it has been getting COLD at night (45ish). Once it does frost, our apple trees should ship, and I'm excited about them! We ordered three different verities: Virginia Beauty, Black Twig, & Shockley, all on M111 rootstock. We won't get fruit for a couple of years, but the trees will look fabulous in the front yard on the ridge. I promise I will take pictures, and since Ryan may be out of town, it should make and interesting adventure.
I've been labeling beer and wine for the Holidays. Those of you who have come to expect our yearly batch of Barley wine, don't fear. Ryan and I will put in a batch as soon as he gets back. It'll just be a bit young when we send it out, but it's best when aged anyway and you should still have yours from last year. We'll put in another batch of Cranberry too, and hopefully we can keep our grubby paws out of it long enough to bottle more then 5 bottles. We also have the fig wine bottled and labeled. It needs to sit for awhile, but Ryan has high hopes for it. The Pear wine is looking lovely and needs to be bottled soon. We also just got our hard cheese kit and cultures in the mail. We've been making fresh mozzarella for a while, and it is the most fantastic thing you have ever eaten. Now we will try our hand at making cheddar and feta! I've been patient so far, but I may resort to making cheese without Ryan.
So that's it for this week. I hope you all are in good spirits.
- Gretchen
Not much has happened in the last three weeks. Ryan's been in Baton Rouge doing some sound work for FEMA, during the recovery process. We've been chatting in the evenings, and boy does he have some interesting stories! But, I will let him tell them when he gets back home. We aren't quite sure when that will be. It could be Tuesday or it could be the 2nd of December. As usual we are slaves to his work schedule.
In other news, we have two new additions to the Suburban Farm - Emilia and Amilia. They live in my office on a high shelf so that the cats won't bother them. We did introduce the girls to Scamp, and she's under the impression that we're keeping very dirty kittens in a cage away from her. She's quite indignant about all of this, and tries to supervise the girls from the floor while chattering at me to let them out. Riley, Porter, and Splats don't seem to care. Greebo likes to sit on top of their cage when I get it down. I'm not sure he understands that there are critters under his butt. And Kismet is unhappy about all this nonsense. As it turns out, the rats are rather fond of the poor puppy. They like to curl up with her in the living room next to the wood stove. I guess she's nice and warm, and doesn't smell of cat. She takes it like a good sport, but looks at me pitifully as she sits trying not to move or squish the girls. The Girls themselves are quite sociable and are warming up to meeting new people. (The kind with only two legs.) They made a great impression on the neighborhood kids who love all of the crazy stuff I do around the house.The circle is gearing up for Halloween. We have a lot of children who trick or treat in our neighborhood and my next door neighbor, Jerry, and my neighbor across the way, Bob, wouldn't want to disappoint them. They go all out! Jerry took two days off work! There's smoke machines, skeletons, sirens, abandoned cars, people in bushes, gravestones, fake blood, severed limbs, etc. They should sell tickets to this thing!
I guess this year there will also be hay rides! This guy's had his tractor out tooling around the street for the last two weekends, and he's getting to be quite popular. You can't see it in this picture, but he also gives rides to the occasional cat and dog. Ya'll know Ryan and I, and you know that we can out gore anyone here in suburbia - we've got all the equipment. I can mix up the best batches of corn syrup blood in all of Williamsburg, and we have left over props from Final Girls. However, we pulled together a gypsy camp our first Halloween here, and the kids were so excited about the non-scary house that I couldn't bring myself to set up a gore scene. So, since Ryan's gone, I'll set up the camp for the third year in a row.Its been cooling down enough at night, that I've had to start a batch of green tomato salsa. The tomato plants are starting to drop their fruit and dry up. I don't blame them - it's been chilly. I'm gonna leave everything until it falls off its respective plant, but I don't think we have too many more days before the first frost. I've been pretty successful at keeping the house a nice warm 70 degrees by using the wood stove and a box fan. It's not exceptionally cold out - 60ish in the afternoons - nevertheless I'm feeling quite proud of myself. I have burned through the wood faster then Ryan thought we would, but it has been getting COLD at night (45ish). Once it does frost, our apple trees should ship, and I'm excited about them! We ordered three different verities: Virginia Beauty, Black Twig, & Shockley, all on M111 rootstock. We won't get fruit for a couple of years, but the trees will look fabulous in the front yard on the ridge. I promise I will take pictures, and since Ryan may be out of town, it should make and interesting adventure.
I've been labeling beer and wine for the Holidays. Those of you who have come to expect our yearly batch of Barley wine, don't fear. Ryan and I will put in a batch as soon as he gets back. It'll just be a bit young when we send it out, but it's best when aged anyway and you should still have yours from last year. We'll put in another batch of Cranberry too, and hopefully we can keep our grubby paws out of it long enough to bottle more then 5 bottles. We also have the fig wine bottled and labeled. It needs to sit for awhile, but Ryan has high hopes for it. The Pear wine is looking lovely and needs to be bottled soon. We also just got our hard cheese kit and cultures in the mail. We've been making fresh mozzarella for a while, and it is the most fantastic thing you have ever eaten. Now we will try our hand at making cheddar and feta! I've been patient so far, but I may resort to making cheese without Ryan.
So that's it for this week. I hope you all are in good spirits.
- Gretchen