Doings.
How are you doing?
Me too!
How warm it’s been, and how lovely. I was in a shop a while ago, and the shop lady was saying to a customer, “We’ve had a drought, so the leaves won’t be good this year.”
Now, it’s undeniable that there’s been a drought, and that a drought is not a good thing. But in my experience, it’s not true that less rain means less of a leaf show. They — and you know who “they” are — agree that no one is quite sure what makes the leaves beautiful one year and not quite as stunning the next. But in any case, drought or no, the leaves are amazing this year.
The raspberries! Between finally making a proper row for them with supports, and an amazingly long warm season, I feel like a raspberry success over here! (In contrast to abject failure in the squash/cucumber/bean department.)
To me, raspberries are the ultimate prize. First of all, they are amazing. Secondly, an itty bitty bit at the store requires you to hand over gold bullion or something. So this harvest feels very winning to me!
We harvested the honey. (You can put the messy things outside and the bees will clean them up!)
The drought has made the bees less productive, so we only got about a third of last year’s harvest, boo.
They will have enough for themselves, and they have lots of pollen, so hopefully next spring will start off in a sprightly fashion — they need pollen to feed the brood, and they need brood for the troops to get out there and get the nectar so they can make honey!
I collected all the green tomatoes, and will make chutney today. (Me: did I ever post about that? Me: Yes! Ha — it’s getting so that I’m forgetting what’s on this blog!)
I think I need a bigger pot — this 8 qt. one is too full already!:
I got an Instant Pot (electric pressure cooker — mine is this exact one). Do you have one? I’ve been experimenting and so far, so good. Today I’m making broth from these nice beef neck bones. I browned them in the oven and am about to scrape off the browned bits before tossing everything (bones, carrots, celery, onions, garlic, bay leaf, salt, pepper, mustard, water, wine) in the pot to pressure cook.
So far I’ve made beans, pot roast, and baked potatoes. Tell me if you’ve had any great successes — I really like it, I must say, even though the truth is, I don’t have enough counter space for it. Like, what was I thinking…
I’m also trying to finish up this little knit vest. Isn’t it cute? Those are owls, in case you are wondering!
Trying to figure out if I left a big enough hole for the head. On the one hand, that bind-off is very stretchy. On the other, we have big heads in this family…
And I re-did my to-do list notebook. I think I will give you more details on Saturday…
Just in case you missed it, I published my little book, a guided reading of Casti Connubii (the Church’s teaching on marriage) last week: God Has No Grandchildren. If you’ve read it (or had read the posts here on the blog), do leave a review if you can on Amazon and/or Goodreads! Thank you!
And don’t miss my article on Crisis: A Family-Friendly Guide to Sex Education. Truthfully, I would have put a different title on there. I don’t actually believe in sex education, and I explain why! See what you think!
So those are the doings and goings on. What have you got where you are?
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