Spring Flowers, Therapy and the Frog

1.) Go outside every day and marvel at creation.

2.) Be amazed, humbled, grateful you're able.  Not everyone can.

3.) Bring beauty into your life and the lives of those you love. 

4.)  Don't worry about getting fancy.   

5.)  Find your peaceful place.

6.)  Share with others.

Enjoy the simple things.

Love from Whippoorwill Road,

Bernadine

The Birds

The mysterious yellow green bird was back at the feeder.

This is a bad picture.  I tried to enhance it.

Before: 

After:

It's bad, I know.  

But it was taken between slats in a blind and a dirty glass window.

Stepping on tippy toes and holding my breath.

I could spend the whole day just watching these little things.

(They make quite the mess, don't they?)

This little thing hit the screen too hard.  

It was stunned.  Little chickadee needed a moment to collect itself...

...figure out what happened and catch it's breath.  Then off it flew.

Then I thought that I have a lot of birds in the house too.

Birds that hold matches...

...that hang on walls...

...that perch on furniture and all sorts of places.

I have so many birds.  They're all over the place.

I'll show them later.  First, I'll have to dust.  

I don't want to.  (That's for the birds.)

Love fromWhippoorwill Road,

Bernadine 

The Last Few Days I've Been...

... preparing to do this...

...visiting this...

...which resulted in this...

...then spent three nights doing this...

...arose to prepare this...

...which we dug up from this...

 Afterwards, we came in and smelled this.

That's what we've been doing on

Whippoorwill Road.

Bernadine

Gettin' Stuff Done and Done Again

(sigh*)

 We've become trashy people.

No denying it.  We have house trash, yard trash and garage trash. 

Well no longer!  The elimination process begins!  

We head to the dump.  

 Though we mapped out the dimensions of the garden once, 

we re-plow to enlarge it, again. 

 These are my suffering roses.  We planted them two years ago.  They were for Mother's Day.

They're on the wrong side of these big evergreens and have struggled valiantly ever since.  

 We have to replant them on the other side. 

Oh yeah, and that load we drove all the way to the dump?

The dump was closed and we brought it all home again.

One step forward, two steps backward.

Sometimes it just feels that way

on Whippoorwill Road,

Bernadine

Making Soap

Unveiling the Soap

We're so pleased with ourselves.  It worked!

The soap set up like it was supposed to and smelled wonderful.

The boxes were perfect.

Two big loaves of Lavender Olive Oil Soap!  Yay!

Peeling away the lining.

Now it's time for the cutting.

Once again, I tried to do this.  But couldn't.

So yet again, Richard takes the helm.

Look at all this homemade, all natural soap.

10 lbs. worth of it.

Now it cures for 4-6 weeks and then it will be ready.

The New Man Colson is so proud of us.

So am I.

Still being productive on Whippoorwill Road,

Love, 

Bernadine 

Cheese, Soap and the Garden

Ricotta Cheese,

Making Soap and 

the Garden

I did not complete the editorial on the previous blog about our Cheese Making.  I was so enthralled that we actually did it, I was exhausted from the sense of anticipation and achievement.

So, let me fill you in on the gaps:

This is the leftover whey from the Mozzarella.

After we brought the whey to a certain temperature, 

we pour it through two sieves.

This catches the Ricotta. 

Which leaves you with a little, yet tasty, Ricotta.

I put that homemade Ricotta on my toast the next morning and ate

in silent wonderment.

Amazing right?

So now, let's get out of the kitchen (not my favorite place) and head outside (my favorite place).

I drew up some simple plans at 3 a.m. this morning.  Yeah, I have

insomnia from time to time.

 The photo below is totally bogus.  It's not real.  Richard drove in all the stakes.  I'm just posing here.  You see, nothing would have brought me more pleasure than to pound these things in but alas, I cannot.  I hurt my elbow at work and I have to rest it.  

What you can not see is the elbow brace underneath and the Icy Blue ointment underneath the brace.  

('Don't Cry For Me, Argentina' would be a nice touch here)

I just wanted to be captured on film so one day my descendants would see I was really here, a part of this whole process, that I did participate. 

 Again, I would have loved to help Richard carry the compost bin on it's maiden journey out to the yard.  I even tried it one armed but alas, I could not.  So Man-Child, oops, he's not a child any longer, New Man Colson was recruited yet again.  

 "A little to the left, please."

 "Now please, turn it around, face it towards me, a little to the right,...

...yep, that's it!  Perfect!  Thank you so much."

Though I could not pound stakes in the ground nor carry big beautiful wooden bins, I could go around the yard collecting "food" for the bin:   old poop pellets from Buns, plants that didn't make it through the cold weather, newspaper from Bun's cage and that old Thanksgiving decor that I had dumped in the woods.  I'm adding the brown layer.  Tomorrow I add the green layer.

(That's if Richard has recovered from today)

Because, after all I can not push the mower over the liriope or hold the weed wackier.  Not with one hand.  

And then, if all this was not enough, we tried our hand at making soap today!

Started outside due to fumes.

We finished it in our lab.

Another bogus photo.  Since I could not lift the pot of liquid soap, I spooned in a beginning amount to test the soap boxes.

(And to include myself in this momentous occasion.

Can anyone say "Lifestyle Lift?")

There you have it: 10 pounds of Lavender Olive Oil soap.

It's going to set up for 24 hours in these boxes, which are wrapped in towels sitting in the laundry room.

Then we'll slice up our product and cure it for 4-6 weeks.

Poor Richard.  He can't wait until I return to work on Thursday.

He needs a break from all these activities.

Looking for potential guinea pigs to try some soap from Whippoorwill Road.

Bernadine