Keeping Cool and Odds & Ends

We don't have air conditioning. It's been over 90°F for the past several days with wicked high humidity. That means there is just one sure way to cool off.

Yep, the hose! Laural & Micah have been having a ball playing in the sprinkler.

I think I might join them tomorrow since it's supposed to be another 90's kind of day.

We've had a lot going on here lately. We finally found a source for raw milk and got 3 gallons on Saturday. Besides drinking the yummy goodness, yesterday, I used some of the cream I skimmed off it to make home made butter. It's different but super yummy. I only used a pint of cream so I didn't get a whole lot of butter but it should be enough for about a week.

We've also begun in the process of eliminating certain things from our diet. The two biggies are gluten & soy. So far it isn't too bad but we are totally bread people so the gluten free bread is going to take some getting used to. So far, I've made a loaf of bread which turned out okay but not great and pancakes. The pancakes were really, really awesome! After the kids and I had eaten our fill, I cooked the rest of the batch to put in the fridge for later. They lost a lot in the texture and flavor after cooling & reheating but butter and syrup kind of covered that over. I think I'll cut the recipe in half next time or maybe I will just keep the batter uncooked in the fridge and see how that works when they are cooked up later.

Finally, my garden has been starting produce a few more yummy goodies for us. My cucumbers, zucchini & broccoli are still pretty questionable, probably thanks to the cat that keeps using it for it's litter box, but the other garden bed is coming along pretty nicely.

Today, I picked this nice handful of purple beans and sugar snap peas. We had more snap peas than that but a bunch got eaten already. Laural and I love them! 

We had an uninvited visitor come in with the beans though...

One of the bean leaf beetles that have been chewing on my plants since day one. They nearly killed my green beans but they managed to survive and are still giving me a a few beans. This little guy got to live just long enough to have his picture snapped. I think a little Neem oil is going to find it's way to the garden tomorrow.

This is a little bit of how our week has gone so far. I've got big plans for tomorrow too! Homemade yogurt from raw milk and another try at gluten free bread. Wish me luck!