Tom left on a vacation the day after Labor Day.  He went on his annual motorcycle trip with my father, my brother, and his son.  This year included my father’s lady friend.  As my dad fractured his hip last year, it was a modified plan this year but still included hot springs, this time in Oregon.  Here is Tom and his son leaving.

And I got to manage the farm by myself.  Here are the sheep enjoying the sun that day.

I had to work too.  So I brought Ryeleigh to my mother and stepfather to puppysit for a couple of days.  She quickly destroyed the toy I brought for her so they got her a new one, which she enjoyed.

But I had to get up at 5 AM to get the farm chores done before going to work.  The nice thing (probably the only nice thing) was that I got to see sunrises.

I also got to see the “chicks” roosting. I counted 33 of them.

The Schneider Springs Fire keeps creeping ever closer to our family cabin on the north side of Edgar Rock.

The peacock dropped his feathers.  Here are the feathers I collected.  Let me know if you are interested in any.

And here he is without his tail feathers.

I went up to the hay loft on Friday looking for more feathers.  I found more feathers but also found a peahen apparently sitting on a nest.  So we may have more peachicks yet.

I have been harvesting and preserving like crazy. I have picked tomatoes, plums, pears, grapes, beans, and corn.  Here are some of the tomatoes.

Steve and Ryeleigh had missed each other when Ryeleigh was away.  Here they are having a great time in the orchard when I was picking the plums and pears.

So for dinner that night I decided to try to make turnip pizza crust.  I no longer have cauliflowers in the garden but plenty of turnips.  So I used the cauliflower crust recipe using them instead.  It turned out well.  Here is my pizza using this crust.

On Saturday, September eleventh, I woke up early (as I had all week) but I watch the 9/11 ceremonies broadcasted and participated in moments of silence.  I had watched some History channel documentaries about the attack the night before and continued to do so on 9/11 as well. This was my day of infamy.  It changed the course of my life.  It spurred me to find a life partner and improve my circumstances, and I think it had a similar effect on Tom as well.  So unfortunately we can thank that horrific event for our happiness.  But through the documentaries I learned a lot more about the horror, grief and heroism of that day.  I also learned about the randomness of who lived and who died.  Such an awful day.  We were able to visit the memorial in NYC when we were there just pre-pandemic which I am grateful for.

On 9/11 I also decided to clean our rugs.  I rented this cleaner, and it did an amazing job of extracting dirt and hairs from our rugs.

I also made two felted fleece rugs, from Honor and Maybelle.  Here they are drying on our back porch.

For dinner I wanted to use my recently completed fermented sauerkraut.  And I thought of a Reuben sandwich.  But I wanted to mix it up a little.  So I found this rye crisp bread in our local store so thought I would try it.

So I made Reuben crackers with thousand island dressing (I couldn’t find Russian and didn’t feel like making it), corned beef, my sauerkraut and Swiss cheese.  I made extra for leftovers.  I nibbled on this while watching a Lucile Ball interview by Johnny Carson which was entertaining.  These are addictive, and the sauerkraut is incredible.

It started raining on Saturday which I wasn’t quite expecting.  Sorry this is out of focus. We ended up with 0.8 inches total in grampa’s rain gauge.

Sunday was dedicated to food preservation in front of football.  The first order of business was cutting up plums while watching the Seahawks win.

Ryeleigh is an enthusiastic fan.

Her is all of the corn I picked.  It took me two evenings to process all of this corn.

The leftovers were enjoyed by the pigs,

and the chickens.

Tom returned today.  I am thrilled to have him back as is Ryeleigh (and Steve).

Unfortunately the fire is creeping ever closer to our cabin. The weather there is supposed to change for the better later in the week so our cabin just needs to hang on a few more days.  Worrying about this fire has been a huge distraction for me (and the rest of my family).  And there is nothing we can do but watch and wait.