Walk on the Army Road

The "Army Road" is a gravel road built and maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers that runs out from town about 2 miles through marshlands and water meadows to a place to launch boats or go fishing. I forget it's there most of the time, which is really sad, because it's such a beautiful part of our area.

Britta worked 2nd shift at the nursing home, and then, when someone called in sick, stayed and did the night shift, too, and I picked her up at 6 this morning. That's when I usually get up, so it meant I had to be awake and alert enough to drive a little early this morning. But what a gift that early morning turned out to be. A 12-mile drive along the river road to Lansing, with mist on the marshes and birdsong everywhere, sparkling water, mama turtles hiking across the highway to find places to lay eggs, and deer. When we got home, I grabbed Bo's leash and we walked down to the Army Road and walked down it maybe a quarter mile, not far because Bo is old and tires easily *, but it was great. I am going to do it again and bring my camera this time. We saw many, many birds, heard lots of birds and frogs, and saw a muskrat swimming very close to the road. Bo learned lots of things by smelling everywhere. He's very tired now and ready for a nap.

Bo is our Keeshond whom we adopted from TurboKees Keeshond Rescue. He's 10-1/2 years old now and had neurological issues where he has lost proprioception in his back legs and feet, but he still loves a good walk.

* Yes, I know what you're thinking, that I am the one who is old and tires easily. Okay, we both do.

Dehydrator

My dry-mesh open-air dehydrator is really working out well. It takes longer to dehydrate in it than it would in an electric one, at least in our climate (in the desert, it probably would not be much longer, if any), but it uses free solar and wind energy. So far we have dehydrated morel mushrooms, fresh parsley (I got it on clearance at the market), rhubarb, a lot of peaches, and now I have spinach leaves in it. I read an interesting piece on line about dehydrating spinach. You wash it, take the stems off, and dry the leaves until they are thoroughly crunchy-dry, then run them through the blender to make spinach flour, which you can then easily incorporate into soups and sauces or (and this is my favorite idea) into pasta dough to make spinach pastas.

Yesterday morning I picked through our row of spinach, taking every leaf big enough to pick, and it was decimated. All that went into the dehydrator. Lil Miss A commented that she wished she could have had one more spinach meal before I did that. I figured it was done for the year, because I was pretty brutal with my picking. But by evening time, the row had grown a whole bunch more spinach and it's ready to pick again. Amazing. And now Lil Miss A can have more fresh spinach for lunch.

The peach slices, by the way, are so delicious. The peaches when fresh were a little disappointing, picked early for shipment and so not very sweet when they finally did ripen. But when we (the girls and I) sliced them thin, dipped them in vinegar water anti-browning solution, then dehydrated them in the open air, all the sugar they contained was concentrated, and they are irresistible. I ate way more than I should straight out of the dehydrator.

Getting ready for church this morning... Today our family is providing the meal for fellowship hour after services. This year I made (surprise!) peach pies, 5 of them, to serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. I panicked when I got the pies ready, thinking there might not be enough for everybody. You just never know what attendance will be like in the summertime. So I quickly made a big pan of strawberry rhubarb crisp to keep as a backup. If we don't need it, we can bring it home.

Lil Miss A leaves this afternoon for her week at Village Creek Bible Camp. She is very excited.

UPDATE: We didn't even touch one of the pies. :) We will be eating pie and crisp for a week.

A quick post

Lovely weather, finally. Birds nesting like crazy, things growing. My potatoes in their barrels are growing healthy and strong. I feel bad every time I bury them in dirt and make them grow again. Potato guilt.

I'm going to get back to work now after a fun supper cooked out at the fire pit: Johnsonville Turkey and Cheddar brats on buns, with toasted marshmallows for dessert. A neighbor gave us a bunch of wood scraps, mostly hardwood, from his carpentry work, and it made a small, hot, quick fire that was ready to cook on within minutes.

Found a baby bird dead in the grass by the pond this evening. Not sure what kind it is; it's big, quite a bit bigger than a robin of the same age. Poor little mite.

I thought having little children, toddlers, babies, preschoolers, was exhausting. I had no idea what life would be like with these wonderful teenagers those babies grew into. I'm perpetually exhausted, it seems. I can only look with wonder on their energy and try not to get left too far behind.

Oh, and I temporarily deactivated my Facebook account, on the very slim chance that anyone noticed. We limit the amount of time the kids spend on Facebook, and I realized I was not holding myself to the same standards. It's not permanent, it's just till I can be certain I am not abusing it.