Thursdays at Home

I have post at HWW today about homemade taco seasoning and why our family has taco salad at least every other week... :)
It's another Thursday at home and some how the whole morning has gone and I haven't even begun to clean up the house or bake bread or (insert boring chore here). However I DID have brunch with my father and his girlfriend/partner (hmmm Stoney what do I call you?? -live in spiritual advisor??). We haven't talked for a while and it was really good to do that! They were ale to help me with floor plans and lessons learned from their experiences building in the boonies!
We sign (and pay for) our land tomorrow. Four acres for cash and the remaining 15 on a land contract with Mr Nice Farmer. Saturday we are getting together with the builder. The loan officer (construction loan) will be out of town until after Easter, so hopefully we can have drawings submitted to her the first or second week of April so she can begin the process of securing our construction loan. That process will take 3-4 weeks. Even thinking positively it will be middle May before funds are released for us to build. Garage and well first, then list house. Whew.



Thursday mornings we do Dr meetings at work. They always depress me. It should be a collaborative team building session, but increasingly I'm finding myself wanting to not be on this team. The most meaning I am getting from work lately is the paycheck, it's a nice paycheck and interesting work most of the time -but the small animal-pets as children -best medicine model is crushing me. I want to help people by helping their pets not cover my ass all the time.
Acck, time to knead some bread, open the windows and let the spring air blow through the house.
Kris

Sprouting!

The 160 lbs of potatoes we stored in the basement root cellar (ie closet) are sprouting; some just a little, others alot!






Time to use 'em or loose 'em. Sunday I peeled, sliced about 1/4 inch thick with the mandolin slicer (-best $30 I ever spent!) and dehydrated about 3 quart bags full of finished product (plus a large crock of scalloped potatoes for supper later this week). I read many different techniques for avoiding brown dried slices. I noticed that of the 4 potato varieties in our cellar-one was consistently more brown than the others-problem is I don't know which one. I can say for sure the Yukon Golds did NOT brown with this method...




Peel potatoes, place immediately into pot with salt and lemon juice added. Dump dirty water (I didn't wash potatoes prior to peeling), refill with salt and lemon juice. Slice and immediately put slices back into pot, have small helper feel around bottom of pot to find all hidden whole potatoes! Rinse to get rid of lemon juice (no SOUR slices!). Place on dehydrator racks (110 degrees for about 4 hours ??) until crisp.
It didn't take many potatoes to fill up our 4 rack American Harvest dehydrator. I see this being a project which I repeat every few weekends! I also see the need for a solar powered dehydrator to store the much increased garden produce I have planned :)

Unstuck

Unstuck in a big way. Friday I finished the artwork I blogged about last time. My art=life metaphor followed suit. On Friday I met with the attorney to finish the land contract stuff-we will be signing on the dotted line next week! This weekend I was finally able visualize what the garden for this year would look like and I sat down with my seed packets to draw out the garden plan. DH finished the grow light/seed starter/potting bench unit (I promised to devote a post to his {carpentry and design} prowess later this week). 'IF' has been replaced by 'WHEN'.

Finish What You Start

I have a problem finishing things. I love to see the possibilities in things. But sometimes when you finish they are crap; all possibility is gone, the potential is never realized.

This winter I began art lessons-one hour a week with my Mom. I am a pretty talented amateur artist in my medium of choice-charcoal. I have been wanting to try something with vibrant color, so we began working with oil pastels. At first I felt as if I was coloring with my kid's crayons, but I have stuck with it and am on the verge of creating what I would consider art (something which would give me pleasure to hang on my own walls). But I have frozen, I don't know how to go forward without wrecking the potential.

This is the metaphor for my life right now; on the verge and afraid to go forward-what if the reality doesn't live up to expectations, what if I really suck at this? What if I never try-that would be the worst. This is a piece of art I will finish (both the pastel and our homestead attempt), even if it is not a magnificent piece of art -it is me trying and not giving up.

Some of my previous art-currently gracing the walls of our home:







In other news: we may be land owners next week!! Now I can START to think about calling the real estate agent, well driller, and the building contractor. I also let the bunnies have a 'date'. We should have a litter of Florida Whites in 30 days. The female got very fat over the winter-I guess the girls were doing a very good job in feeding her. A fat bunny doesn't usually have sizable litters-hmm we will see what happens. I figure her litter will be about 6 weeks old when school gets out for the summer and we move to the camper on the land, they should be able to handle the stress of a move at that age. Spring is here-I'm just not quite ready for it.

Master Baking Mix

Good Morning!
Following in the Real Food Challenge theme, today at Homemakers Who Work, I have a post about creating a store of Master Baking Mix. A nice Sunday project to make your week go a little smoother!

Kris