Wishing all of my blogging friends the happiest of holidays! May you really feel the spirit of thankfulness for all of the blessings in your lives.

Two Eggs a Day.

I am so excited that two of my nine new hens are laying daily. You would have thought it was Christmas early, I am so happy to eat my morning omelet with eggs from my hens and herbed goat cheese inside. It's truly the little things in life! On a side note, my youngest son 18 who still lives at home won't eat the eggs from my chickens, he loves eggs but says he cant eat the children of the hens he knows. Weird kid!!

Problem Fixed

I think I found the problem with my ability to open links in blogger. I un-installed some of the applications I had recently downloaded from facebook and removed the google toolbar they were displayed on and the problem was fixed. I guess you really have to be careful about what you download. Happy to see all of your blogs entries again!!

I can't read the blogs I follow

I am so frustrated, I am unable to open the links to the blogs I follow. Everything else in blogger works but it like a pop up blocker is on that prevents me from going to all of your blogs.
My pop up blocker is off. I have written to google, no response yet. I have run anti-virus and disk clean up on my computer I have re- booted a million times. This has been going on for over a week. I am in blog withdrawal!!!! Any suggestions??

Making Soft Cheese

I have gotten in the habit of making at least one batch of easy soft goat cheese each week.
This easy method uses lemon juice to curdle the milk. If stored in an airtight container immediately the cheese retains a lot of whey making it soft and spreadable like cream cheese.
If left to hang in the cheese cloth longer you end up with a dryer batch that can be sliced or even crumbed like feta. I add spices to season the cheese according to my taste. I found the original directions at the website "Slugs on the Refrigerator". I would post the link but I can't seem to make copy and paste work inside the blog format. I hope to expand my cheese making adventures to Mozzarella and eventually hard cheeses too. http://www.slugsontherefrigerator.com/ . I figured it out, here is the link to that site.

It's the little things...

that make me smile , like the first eggs from my new flock of chickens, my new milk goat, a colorful batch of homemade soy candles, a batch of freshly made goat cheese from my own goats milk.

Coming home after a long day at work and gladly summoning up the energy to tend to my little farm because all who reside here depend on me.

Coffee Grinder

Ordered a coffee bean grinder off of ebay today, I think it was a post at "Cold Antler Farm" that inspired me to find one, now to find an old fashioned percolator.

I have followers!!!

I just had to say thank you to those people who commented on my blog. This is my first venture at writing anything ever and as you all know it is intimidating to say the least to bare your soul and expose yourself for all the world to see. I find the process is somehow liberating and scary at the same time.

I enjoy the blogs I follow so much and feel so satisfied knowing that there are other people out there who share a similar vision and interests as I do. Having grown up in Los Angeles Calif. most people really don't understand why I do what I do (that's certainly a blog in itself). Already, you have added so much to my knowledge base. I am happy if I can add in anyway something to the collective experience.

I have a long way to go, I hope that someday I will be able to add photographs that even come close to the beautiful images that some of you share or that I might be able to write as eloquently as some I have read but I believe the journey is going to be a lot of fun.

I feel like I have made some new friends out there....Thank you!!

The first week in ICU

Spending a lazy morning sleeping in and reflecting on the whirlwind that has been this week.
I am pleasantly satisfied with all of the new experiences that came my way at work this past week. I transduced an arterial line, pulled a sheath, learned about Central Venous Pressure, what do do with some really lethal but lifesaving medications, and probably a hundred other things I did not know before. It's not rocket science, but it is definitely more technically challenging stuff then I had previously been exposed to. I watched a family greive the loss of a beloved mother with grace and dignity and I prayed that I would have such a family by my side when my time comes. I am reminded that life is a precious gift not to be wasted.

Coming home nightly to my little chunk of land I feel the need to simplify even further, shed the unnecessary clutter in my life and get even more back to basics. I read a blog somewhere out there describing the simple satisfaction of grinding your own coffee beans and percolating them on top of the stove in a simple old fashioned coffee pot, somehow that appeals to me a great deal. The problem I see with trying to simplify is dependency on the consumer machine.
Even if I decide to get back to basics and grind my own beans and even go so far as to brew them over a campfire or a wood burning stove, I have to get those beans from somewhere right? The challenge is to find local sources for such items. I think that might be harder to do then I can even imagine.

Life is good

For the past week or so I have had that amazingly satisfied with life feeling. I have a new job and am finding it very rewarding, forcing me to grow and inch out of my comfort zone. For years I had thought I would like to be an ICU nurse but was afraid of the complexity of the medications and the advanced equipment one sees in that setting but after only two days in the new position I have learned so much. My head is full of new things that I am trying to sort and make sense of. I believe I am going to rise to the challenge.

In my home life the simple addition of the dairy goat who needs to be milked twice daily and the new chickens combined with the cooler weather has rejuvenated my desire to continue on my journey towards a more self sustaining homestead. I find milking very grounding, somehow connecting me more to all of the animals who all come to watch the dairy theatre. Anthony, my 18 year old son and I have settled into a peaceful routine. Something about the fall, even in Florida makes you want to nest in, go to bed earlier and keep the home fires tended. I like it!