Tom has been around this week, which has been nice.  One thing that happened this week was Shetland Wool Week.  I was able to participate in three virtual events (A Talk with the Doulls, Perspectives from Jamieson’s Mill with Garry Jamieson and Gudrun Johnston, and Shetland Lace: Prettiest Imitation of the Fantasy of Nature with Carol Christiansen).  Here are photos from the week.

On Tuesday I participated in another virtual event, the Cat Ladies for Kamala VP debate watch party.  It was fun.

As far as the new peafowl go, they seemed to be taken under the wing of one of our peahens.  So that seems to be working out.

On Wednesday morning, Wally left a present outside of her cat window.  Thankfully she did not bring the dead rodent into our house.

On Tuesday I had taken Ryeleigh out back to test out a new no-pull harness.  She had managed to sneak out of it and terrified us.  It took a while to get her out of the blackberry infested woods.  On Wednesday I refitted the harness on her and had an emergency connection between the harness and her collar in case she slipped out of it again.  But this time all was well.  She enjoyed her walk without any issues.

I didn’t realize it until the end, but Wally joined us as well.  It reminded me of Monster from one of my favorite blogs.

I did notice that Sonja is blending in with the autumn grass.

I am still getting produce from the garden.  Loving the carrots.

I transplanted the parsley and rosemary and moved them into the house, hoping to keep them alive through the winter.

Tom has been quite busy picking and pressing apples.  Here he is preparing apples to press them.

Wednesday afternoon I dedicated myself to making Chinese Chicken Salad from The Great American Recipe.  I purchased ingredients that I do not usually do (wontons, rice sticks).  I was able to use our carrots, green onions and chicken.  It did take 3 hours to make. And I wasn’t sure that Tom would like it.  He was interested in it when we watched the show together, but he is not a salad fan.  But here is the salad before mixing it.  The produce on the top are items that Tom would like with the cabbage and lettuce on the bottom.

Here is my salad.  It was amazingly good, and Tom agreed!  Worth the effort.

Thursday morning I was finally able to participate in the weekly spinning zoom that I have been missing due to work.  It was sunny as well so it was nice.

I was also able to try to shear Fidalgo.  He likes to flop when on a lead so I ended up bending over him to get the fiber off.  I was only able to remove it from his trunk and wasn’t able to get his butt and neck before we were both wore out.  I still need to trim his toes as well.  But at least the majority of the job is done.

Thursday afternoon I started kefir, fromage blanc and cinnamon buns, all to be finished on Friday.  This morning I baked the Swedish cinnamon buns (kanelbullars).  They are incredibly good.  This was to celebrate Cinnamon Bun Day (Kanelbullens dag) which is on October 4th each year.

There is a huge mushroom in our driveway.  I have never seen one here this big.

I finished the kefir.

And the fromage blanc.

It has been a nice farm week, and it was great having Tom around.