Busy, Busy Day

Oh what oh, what do I say today? I've been busy, okay, not the last hour as the kids are sleeping and I took it off for the first time in ... let's just say a long long time but the rest of the day I have been going full out. I think I deserved to just lay on the bed and watched a BBC mystery television show on Hulu. Such bliss to just hold still and not be doing anything.

Last night until eleven I was baking a home-made pizza on Ciabatta bread I'd started that morning so my hubby would have something to take for lunch and while it cooked, I folded several loads of clothes. Since Kirk was still up we sneaked in an television episode from Hulu. I about rolled off the bed I was laughing so hard at an episode from the eleventh season of Top Gear. Kirk and I just love the British television show and our daughter said they are in their fifteenth season but we just discovered it a couple months ago on Hulu. If you fellow Americans haven't discovered it yet, it's a must watch. Though it is about cars and I have about zilch interest in them, they put a twist on the subject that has me hooked. In case some of you are wondering no, we don't have cable or satellite television as we don't have time to watch that much t.v.

Oh my, I got off track. The reason why I thought I deserved the break was this old lady was teaching a young mother about canning. She has two boys three and under and with ours that makes five children (four under three years old) to wrangle. I can certainly tell you that it made things more interesting, okay...challenging, alright I can see your eyebrows arched. It was downright tough, especially since our youngest grand daughter insisted I hold her the whole time.

The first thing we did was start chicken breasts cooking on the barbecue grill. While we shuffled breasts off and more on we were also making apricot jam. When that was cooking we cut up chicken and put it into the jars. Of course while that was both going I was flipping and cooking an artisan bread. All in between giving snacks to the kids and closing the back door for the umpteenth time or running in search for the two little ones under two years old.

The kids weren't done playing but I gave my young friend some warmed up pizza on a paper towel and she bribed the boys into her car with it promising they could eat it on the way home. Her youngest zipped past her and made a dash for the vehicle screaming, "pizza, pizza" in his toddler's somewhat garbled voice. Yup, worked like a charm.

After my rest and while my grandchildren were still sleeping I started some raspberry jam. The berries were frozen and in the freezer. No, unfortunately they aren't mine. I'm moving my smaller plants next month in hopes of getting them to produce better next year. I did make the rose pedal, lemon jam into ice cream last night. It tasted a bit like a creamy lemon pie. Can anything be too creamy? I think it was and I even cut down the amount of cream I used by a half a cup and used milk instead but still it wasn't quite right. The next time, I'm using milk only. This morning before the grand kids arrived, I made the cheese cake ice cream and with some strawberry ice cream I made a few weeks ago, I think we should have plenty for Saturday.
Lest you think I was being lazy, LOL I made some cream biscuits also and put the dough into the freezer ready to bake on Saturday to go with the fried chicken. Now if I can find the umph to go stir up the pie dough I'll be on schedule.

First though since the kids left with their mom I really, really, need to go shovel some manure from the trailer on to the area of the garden we want to add next year. My garden doesn't look too shiny this year, too much manure. I knew it would be a problem but I also want to have some things accomplished that I won't have to do again next year and that is hauling lots of manure. Oh I'll still get a trailer and a few loads in the back of the truck as I clean this winter but the major work I want done and decomposing. Next year, I keep telling myself it will be a super garden. Our youngest grand daughter will be older and hopefully she'll let me work while she plays in the yard.