Gratitude

Along with being absent from my blog so much this past year, I also have fallen away from the gratitude posts I had been putting up every Monday.  As I was complaining about something recently, I realized that I needed to get back to this.  It is important for me to remember all the things I have to be grateful for.

Today I am grateful for:

• A husband who accepts when I am overwhelmed and goes above and beyond to help me.
• My new job.
• The ability to live where I am surrounded by beauty and solitude that helps me refresh without planning a weekend away.

What are you grateful for today?

September Soup Of The Month: Avgolemono

Some friends and I have decided to try a monthly recipe thing again.  This time it's going to be soups.

This months soup (pictured above) is Avgolemono.  It is a Greek soup who's name translates to Egg And Lemon.  The recipe we used can be found HERE.

I apologize for the poor picture, the battery was dead in my camera so I had to use my phone. 

Now for what I thought of the soup.  In short, it was good.  Not great, but good.  However, I think it could be great.  I followed the recipe exactly, as I normally do when I make something for the first time.

I found the lemon flavor to be a bit over powering.  My lemons were on the rather large side though, so in retrospect I probably should have used just two of them. 

I also found the whipped egg very hard to incorporate.  Next time I may not whip them quite so much.

Other recipes I have looked at call for a measured amount of lemon juice, eggs whipped until just foamy and more egg yolk.  

While I did find it to have too much lemon, the soup did leave me wanting bite after bite.  The egg gives it a very silky mouth feel and the pasta just enough chew to leave me satisfied. 

I can't wait to try this soup again.  I think with minor adjustments it would be a fast family favorite.

Fair Week 2012

It's  been a few weeks since fair ended.  Yet I still find myself going back to this series of pictures for a smile.  

You see, Miss Meg was not too excited to get up and show her animals in front of everyone.  She is so terribly shy.  Everything had gone so well with the rabbits and guinea pigs.  All we had to do was get though the goats.  I should have known it wouldn't stay so easy.  

The first sign something might happen.  "What's that over there?"

 "Oh wow, the grass over here smells so different."

"Oh, am I suppose to be behaving myself now?"

 

And that was it.  She was off.  And through it all, Meg survived.  She didn't have a breakdown and she didn't get mad.  She just got determined.  The goat may have been distracted, but Meg did not give up.  She even had fun.  I'm so proud of her.

Wow!  I knew I had been neglecting my blog, but somehow it did not feel like it had been six months.  In that time all of my kids have had birthdays.  Both of my goats have had babies.  One of my hens hatched out chicks.  Not to mention all of winter has come and gone.  

Life has been busy.  At the same time, nothing really profound has happened.  I have to wonder if that is because what we do now just seems normal, or if I am really that boring.  I prefer to think it's the former.

At one time having goats be born on our homestead would have been at the very top of my list of profound things.

And wouldn't you know, as I was writing this Rob came in to tell me that Stormagedon (one of our goat bucks) was out.  There's a first for us.  Too bad I wasn't smart enough to grab my camera.  Luckily he was easy enough to get back in the pen.  All it took was a little hay.

Here is a picture of Stormagedon from a few months a go.  He has since lost his winter coat and is almost completely white!

Cream Soda with her baby when she was just a couple hours old.  I think this should be on a Mother's Day card.

Nigerian Dwarf baby #1.  

Nigerian Dwarf baby #2.

This picture I just love for some reason.  It cracks me up.  She looks like she belongs in the latest vampire movie.  All that is missing is the fangs.

That's all I have time for now.  I'll try to do better.