We find these amanita mushrooms every November:
Here's one of our 11 year old's watercolors for her art class:



It has been a while since posting, I think because I am still catching my breath after finishing our house inspections and feeling like we are sort of done with our house. Also homeschooling is in full swing as I juggle schooling three kids at once. It is going pretty well; I've realized that our 8 year old needs to skip up to a more complicated math book and I an really excited that our 5 year olds reading has really coming along. Our 11 year old is also doing very well with her studies, art, dance and piano. The garden is winding down but we have lots of cool weather crops in the ground like beets, chard, kale and cabbage, and lots of onions, garlic and squash stored. Today I hope to plant some garlic (late as usual) and I am going to roast one of our home raised, home slaughtered turkeys. A little early for it, but it will be good!

I just built my own house and all I got was this stupid piece of paper!

Today we had our final building inspection with the county, and passed of course! I took the kids to a park today so they wouldn't be in the inspector's way, while Brian spent several hours panicking, waiting for the inspector to show up. Everything was great, and we got this little piece of paper saying we were approved. Kind of anticlimactic actually. Now we get to spend the rest of our lives doing bits of finish work, cob and glassing in a sun room/greenhouse, building a rainwater catchment swim pond... but at least we are finished with the county. I brought Brian home some beer and pizza to celebrate, and now he is back to work!

Just posting some quick garden photos and then back to braiding large amounts of onions!

Brian planted about 100 kohlrabi plants this year. Does anyone really need that much kohlrabi?
Lemon cukes!

We have been super busy lately: trying to keep on top of the weeds, caring for the animals, and trying to get some last things done on the house so we can get our final inspections done on the house before Brian goes back to school. He's put a sink in the mudroom (great for washing produce, garden tools and muddy kids) and is almost done with our shower! Here are some garden pictures from this evening:

Our daughter is the one who takes all the photos in our family. She has the nicer camera and enjoys photography, so almost all our blog photos are hers. Unfortunately that means we don't have as many pictures of her to post!

She started her own blog to post some of her photos and the art she is working on for drawing class. You can see it here.

Heat!

It is pretty hot today, mid-nineties, and should be just as hot or hotter tomorrow. This morning we rushed around watering plants and giving extra buckets of water to the animals. They need lots of water on days like today. Now we are mainly working inside.

A few days ago we harvested our garlic. I have been braiding the softneck varieties and hanging bunches of the hardnecks. I easily use at least one whole garlic bulb per meal (bulb, not clove) so we need lots for eating, planting in the fall and for gifts.

Yesterday we beat the heat by going to our favorite spot on a nearby river. It was beautiful but the water was really cold!

Turkey day

Yesterday we butchered our three turkeys. It went well; poultry is pretty easy to turn into food. It always amazes me how quickly it goes from being our animal to something we can put on the table. Our four year old was especially fond of the turkeys so he wasn't happy that we were going to be eating them. I really liked our turkeys; I think they imprinted on humans because they really liked us. As chicks they would peep when we left the room, and as they grew they would follow us around. I know they have a reputation for stupidity, but I found them to be really sweet, though a little simple. It is never easy killing one of our animals, but at least I know that our meat had a great life roaming free and a fast death.

Sorry the blog has been so quiet. Between all the work that needs to be done on the house, land and garden, plus my homeschooled kids' social life, there just hasn't been much time. Finally we have some sun and the plants are really growing! Unfortunately so are the weeds...