I sure don’t post here a lot, but the other day when I realized the domain had expired, it got quite important to me to get it back, which turned out to be a whole fiasco having to do with host migration which coincided with the end of my domain ownership. I have journaled on here far too long to just up and lose it. My hosting also covers the other sites we keep, including The Prospering Peasant, and I have added a new site, The Peasant’s Manor Farm. Nothing on it just yet, but I am thinking that anything farm related, including the farm journal will go there. That one, Dispatches From The Farm, is where I post the most at the moment. I’ll work the two sites apart, rather than confusing the topics, and maybe be able to get more onto The Prospering Peasant.
We are anticipating house guests tomorrow. My brother, Kerry, and his wife and son are coming to visit. I have not seen him since Mom’s funeral, two years ago, is it? I cannot believe I am talking about that in the past tense. Boy, if anything will remind you that you too are going to die, it is losing someone as wonderful as your own mom and knowing for sure that nobody is safe from it. I digress. Kerry is my youngest brother, the one we used to call Beno when we were all kids. I have seen back to the videos from the time, and he looks like a miniature version of his current self. It’s funny how people grow up.
Things here have been so busy lately. Afternoons are often too hot for working outside for very long. But there is a lot to keep up with between the animals and the gardens. The back vegetable garden looks more sandy than the front one, and seems to drain quite quickly. I think it will need quite a lot of soil modification for next year. It requires lots of water in its current condition, so a lot of peat and llama poo would o a long way towards improvement. And of course, if I am going to do one, I need to do both. Both gardens have a large area unplanted in them, so that would be a great place to pile up and get a start this year. Then the pig can spread it around over winter. I also need a deep tiller, and if I can get that by spring, then I think that would put a nice finish on it.
The house is slow going. There is just too much stuff to manage the place and get anything really done in. Missus and I have spent some time working on that last week. When the “stuff” is under control, it will probably be a lot easier to put finish on the place. I still don’t like having visitors just because of it.
We are registering the girls for an online academy so they can home school this coming year. The bus ride is too long, and schools are frankly unsafe these days, and the kids learning styles should be accommodated to them, which we think can be better managed at home. We also want to see stronger emphasis on areas like “home economics” and things that will be of greater value to them. Education is so globally competitive now, which is just another way of saying it is designed to make hive dwelling drones to do the work, and I don’t want them falling in that trap. Kirynie and I are now starting to make bread every other day, and it is so easy! I want her to know how to do it when she grows up, and to know it so well that it is laughable. I was never taught it when I was a kid. Every baking endeavor seemed like it was difficult. The recipe we use requires a little prep work with the stand mixer the evening prior to baking, and then a bake in the morning for 45 minutes. It only requires flour, salt, yeast, and water, and it doesn’t need to be kneaded. There is no weird “put the yeast in the bowl and let it froth up, but for the love of God, don’t kill it” step. Just mix, cover and leave overnight. Bake in a Dutch oven the next morning, 12 to 18 hours after preparing it. So far, they have come out really well. The only complaint I have is that the bottom has been pretty tough to cut through, so I will probably try the Dutch oven on top of a piece of foil or something to reflect back some of the heat. Other than that little crust problem on bottom, the loaves have come out wonderfully! It’s a simple thing, but it is teaching the kids where food comes from, rather than just buying everything pre-made. Kirynie will have a whole class devoted to that the first term of school.
Well, it is getting time to start my day. I am taking the girls to see Grandma in the rest home today. That will probably mean a trip to Logan, and let grandma do her shopping. She had moved down to Salt Lake City at the end of winter or early spring. She had my cousins, Brandon and Ashley move her, after Ashley spent a long time looking for a home for her, then arranging everything. Grandma stayed three months, then had her son move her back up here. Her son has a bad back. I almost feel for these people. But I think they are still clueless about what we went through living with her for three years, and this has been a tiny little nibble of it. Grandma told me when she was in SLC, one of my cousins had aid to her, “Grandma, all you do is complain all the time.” No shit. And when she told me she wanted to come back, she spent an hour and a half telling me her plot to blackmail the man who owns the rest home here in Preston to let her back in there after she had burned the bridge with him right into the river. At the time I thought it wouldn’t likely pan out for her, but let it be. Next thing I know I got a message from my brother saying simply, “Grandma is back in her old rest home by you.” She has no trouble getting people to take her where she wants to go, and it is always through coercion and manipulation without regard to them, to the point of having her son, with his bad back, move her and her furniture for her only three months after getting her grandchildren to move it all in the first place. Her health and safety were fine, she was just unhappy with the service at the home, just like she was at the home in Preston that she has moved back to. And it all comes down to one thing. She wants people to do things for her all the time, and at her pace. And here is me, lived with her for three and a half years, was abused, my family was abused, and my wife was seriously abused, and not willing to put ourselves back in that position again, and figure we are being judged for it by the others. So, let it be, let it be.
Time to get going. As ever, there is much to do. Animals to feed before we leave, animals to feed when we get back, as well as gardens and trees to water. . There is last minute preparations for our house guests to do, shopping for food… I have a pile of laundry to put away too, an d in the midst of it all, just trying to make sense of the world and the people I live in it with.
Kelsey J Bacon