It has occurred to me that I am never actually alone up here in the wilderness when I go about chorin'. Take this morning for instance, I was out in the raspberries, listening to music and plucking berries while I was singing most enthusiastically, when I got one of my feelings. Ever since I was a little kid, I have just known when animals are around. Thanks to a handy dandy slight astigmatism in my left eye, I can also almost always see them, even if they are hiding, but today that feature of mine wasn't needed, I looked up, and right in front of me was a little friend picking raspberries with me. They were really gorging on them too.
I asked him if he was enjoying himself, he twitched his tail in reply, and then we amiably went about our business. Was fun.
I took all of those raspberries that I picked and did what I have been doing almost every other day for the last couple weeks, I washed them, dried them on a towel on my counter, spread them on a tray on parchment, and popped them in the freezer. I took a heaping cup of them, added them to a sauce pan, threw in some sugar and water, simmered them for a bit, and strained them through a mesh strainer. The resulting raspberry syrup is tres yum! The hubs puts a touch in his lemon electrolyte drink and enjoys the taste bud elevation properties.
The corg stared at me longingly as I ate a big ol slice of the sweet potato, banana, oat, chocolate chip bread I made this morning too. I went and got her a chicken sausage treat, because no sugar for her portly little corg form. She's a pretty loyal girl who deserves all the treats.
And then there's the Marshmallow Petals. We weaned the kitten yesterday by bringing her into the house, and holy energy, that kiddo is a little tornado! I'm totally enjoying watching her discover everything and torment the toys on the cat tree the hubs built for Jojo. Jojo never really plays with the tree, preferring to toy with actual living creatures, so watching the baby play with the toys is sorta sweet. Okay, it's really sweet.
My list was quite lengthy in to-dos that needed accomplished today as I am running out of time to get er' all done before school starts. I need to weed eat the last of the thistles, spread straw on the new Hugelkulture beds, and finish up dealing with the most likely dried garlic. The smokeacolypse has slowed me down a bit, I can't be out in it a ton. Honestly, I don't want too, I really hate that this has become a normal yearly feature. Makes me long for the clean, forest fire smoke-free skies of my youth. Oof, that makes me sound like I have a patina of experience!
Well, I guess I sorta do. And let me tell you, I hate seeing 600 of my neighbors lose their homes. Sad that.
But, life will go on, we are all pitching in and helping, and I have to say, I have no complaints, just look at how cool and cute my co-workers are!
And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's thankfully not coated (as of yet) in raspberry syrup iPhone.
