Quick update

Hellodiddleeodlee! Hope you're enjoying summer. Glorious summer. It's here, alright. Yesterday it was over 30 degrees (90-ish F) here - which is unusually hot. And I was working outside all day! Yikes! I drank over 4L of water yesterday. SOOOO needed the water. phew.

So last time I blogged was after Day 1 of the cob oven workshop. Day 2 went awesome; we had a good-sized group of people come out and we got some cob on the oven. I guess I overshot my estimate of how long it would take, but that's okay. Saturday we got 3 batches on the oven, Sunday I mixed up another 2 and Monday I mixed up the last 2. So it took 7 batches of cob to finish the first layer of the oven (which incidentally is 12" thick). Yesterday I pulled the sand form out and removed the newspaper covering the sand, and VOILA - the cob oven didn't collapse in on itself!! It actually held its form and is a beautiful, functional, lovely oven!! I was so excited. I put a fire in it to dry it out (12" walls are quite thick). Even after burning a fire for over 8 hours it was only about 300 or 350 degrees inside; not hot enough for pizza (sadly, for the kids, that is), but it did dry the oven out quite a bit.

This weekend I'll fire it up again and make hubby & the kids some homemade, wood-fired pizza. They'll love it. :) Guaranteed.

So yes, the past several days have been all about the cob oven around here. Yesteday my son and I finished the kids' garden and he planted winter veggie seeds - collards, beets, kohlrabi, lettuce mix, kale. we'll plant some more soon but in this heatwave it'd be best to wait a few days, i think. i'm *SO* excited to have the winter seeds in, though. it's been on my to-do list for several weeks. i weeded the herb garden in the early morning (like 6 - 7:30 a.m.) and watered all the gardens well, although i see the herb garden is already dry. crazy. Early morning is the best time to water gardens because the plants' stomata are open in the morning and after the heat of a long day, they'll be closed in the evening and not as able to soak up the water in the evening. Also, watering in the evening can cause soil temperatures to drop more than if you water in the early morning. So when I am up early (and Sophie makes sure I'm up at ungodly hours, LOL) I try to water in the early mornings. Weed first. Water. Then harvest later in the morning, or in the evenings. Transplanting is best done in the evenings.

I guess that's about it for an update. The 11 chickens are doing very well. We're hoping to see eggs coming soon. Sophie the 11 week old puppy is adorable and very well behaved. She's such a darling. SOOOO sweet. The kids are over at the neighbours playing this afternoon. I'm avoiding my to-do list. LOL

This morning I mixed up a batch of raw muesli, a jar of sesame milk, and some lemon poppy seed energy balls (yummers) - all so that there is raw food ready to go (best to have a few things ready to eat when you get hungry). I also made 2L of green smoothie and drank half.

Alright. That was a long enough quick update. I'll try to check in again very soon.
Love your life and laugh often.
Namaste
~n~