After Market Syndrome

The first couple of days after the markets end are always kind of "odd" days for me. I kind of feel out of sorts (I guess that is the best way to describe it.). I am so used to working at break-neck speeds. And all of a sudden, that comes to a screeching HALT! And life seems "wierd." Nice, but wierd.

For the last six months, besides making soaps for my markets, I was also hired by the Ohio PawPaw Assn. to make 200 bars of PawPaw soap for them, plus I provided product for Sunrock Farm to sell in their farm store.

My average week would go something like this . . Mornings start at 5:00 a.m where I begin getting human "critters" ready to go to work/school, afterward I would feed chickens, milk goats and make 2 to 3 batches soap and a batch or 2 of lotion. The afternoons were devoted to jam and jelly production. In the evenings, I would again milk goats, take care of chickens and ducks, make dinner (usually around 9:00) and eventually get into bed by 11 to 11:30. If there were baby goats, there was bottle-feeding thrown into that mix. And, of course, can't forget housework - sometimes it got done and sometimes didn't. Now where is that maid??

Wednesday afternoons were always set aside for doing homemade pasta for the Anderson market. Either I would drag all my equipment and ingredients over to the Anderson Town Center or just make the pasta in my own kitchen. Thursday evenings were when I would make the goat's milk fudge. Fridays were always my "wrap and label" days.

So for the next day or two, I will wander aimlessly around the house annoying my husband and son. Then I will once again get focused, get back into a routine and life in the Emmich household will once again return to normal and peace shall return to the valley!

It is over

Market season is now over. Makes me feel sad. What a great season this was! I am going to miss all my good friends at the market, both the farmers and the customers. And I am going to miss all the great produce! Unfortunately, Mother Nature took care of that with the heavy frost this weekend. Oh well, it was time.

Speaking of Mother Nature, we did dodge the bullet by missing that snowstorm that is now blanketing the East with snow - WHEW! Not ready for snow this early in the year!! I am sure when the time is right, we, too, will get our share of snow.

And in 45 days, my son will begin a new life in the Navy and I will enter a whole new phase of my life I am not entirely prepared to enter. I have been told by other "survivors of the emptynest syndrome" that there will be a lot of tears at first, but then you will learn to adjust and come to enjoy your new found freedom. I hope so because from this side of the pre-emptynest it sure doesn't look too good! Who knows . . . I might take up wood scupturing or something!

Things My Mother Taught Me

My Mom taught me so many things. I won't be the person I am today without my Mother's influence. When I was 5 years old, she sat me down in front of her sewing machine and taught me to sew. She took me into the kitchen and I would watch her cook, bake and can tomatoes. I got my love for animals from her, too. Out of her 3 daughters, I am probably the one who is most like her.

My husband says it is my mother's fault. You see my mother was terrified of snakes and she passed this on to me. This is not good considering that I live in the black snake capital of the world! Good ole Mom passed her snake fearing gene on to me!

For the last couple of days it has been raining in New Richmond. This morning, I opened the front door to walk my husband to his car and there it was . . . a black snake on our front porch! I should have gone back to bed right then and there!! Granted it was a small black snake (ok, it was a baby snake), but a snake is a snake no matter what size they are!! So my husband scooted it off the porch and went his merry way, while I stood in the door praying to God to protect me!

I eventually got busy, completely forgetting the terrible incident of this morning when I remembered I had to mail some bills. I opened the front door to go out to the mail box. Won't you know it . . . there was another snake!! This time an orange snake. Again a baby one. I quickly retreated into the house vowing NEVER EVER to leave the house again. I called out to my son, Mr. Soon-to-Be-Navy-Seal, to scoot this snake off the front porch. He laughed and walked away. I told him if he wanted to see tomorrow, he better get that snake off the porch NOW!! So with shovel in hand, he took care of the evil creature and promptly removed it to the woods where it belonged. Peace returned to the Emmich household, though I will NEVER EVER leave the house by the front door again!

Apparently, because of all the rain, the snakes are seeking higher ground. BUT, why are they choosing my porch??? This is obviously a terrorist plot. I know I have been watching too much TV. Hopefully, the rain will stop soon and all the good little snakes will go back to where they belong and I can once again leave my house!

Official Beekeeper!

It is official - I am a beekeeper! I have passed the bees' "beekeeper test" and survived! Whew! Boy, it was rough. But, I did it.

This is a picture of inside a bee hive. Those slates are really hive frames where either the queen bee lay her eggs (called a brood frame) or where the bees make honey (called a honey frame).

The last two days I have spent cleaning up the two hives and preparing them for upcoming winter (ugh! I know, I hate the thought of snow, too!). I had to go into the hives and check to see if frames in the honey supers (the small boxes on top of the hives) had any honey in them. The bees will need the honey to get through the winter. One of the hives did have some honey in, the other hive did not have any (oh no!!!).

This is a very serious situation because without the honey, my bees could starve. So I needed to feed my bees. Unfortunately, there is not an aisle in Kroger's labeled Bee Food. What you need to do is boil 2 1/2 quarts of tap water and dissolve a 5 pound bag of sugar in the warm water. Let the sugar water cool down. Pour it into a sprayer and spray the sugar water mixture into the frames that do not have any honey in them.

Here is a friend of mine spraying a frame with the sugar water.

After I spent all that time cleaing up the hive and making the sure the bees would have enough to get through the winter, how did they repay me? I got stung! Not just once, but 4 times! 3 times on my neck and once on my wrist. So I am guessing that I have passed the "beekeeper" test and it is official now - I am a (wounded) beekeeper!

All good things must come to an end

Seems strange to think this weekend will be our last day at the Hyde Park Farmer's market for the year. As the saying goes . . . "all good things must come to an end." Hyde Park Farmer's Market has been really good to us this year - thank y'all!! We are definitely planning on being back next year!

Next year is going to be even better. The market will once again be on the Square (YEAH!). BUT this time we will be there from June through the end of October! How fantastic is that!

Looks like we will be also "shutting" down the goats (so to speak!). This will probably be the last week of milking them for the year - giving them AND me a much needed rest. Hopefully, everyone that needs to be bred has been bred. The buck certainly has been busy!! Thank God that we were able to find a buck!!

So we are ending this year on a high note.

The Eighth Wonder of the World!

And he lives right here in New Richmond of all places! His name is BenZoo. He was named after the Cincinnati Bengals Football Team's mascot, a white bengal tiger cub (back when NFL teams were allowed to have "live" mascots). Anyway, our BenZoo's name somehow gotten shorten to just "Boo."

Boo is the son of Muff. If you will remember, Muff is the head of our "Welcoming Committee." Boo is her one and only "child". Fortunately, he did not inherited her grouchiness!!

So what is so special about Boo that qualifies him for the 8th Wonder of the World?? Well, Boo weighs over 25 pounds. He is a HUGE cat!! Everyone who comes to our house is amazed at how big he is. And he is friendly. He only has one quirk. You do not pick him up. You can pet him, but Heaven forbid if you pick him up (I guess he gets that from "Mom").

To me, Boo is special. You see Boo was born in 2005 the year my Father died. What makes him even more special is that he was born on my Dad's birthday. You can't get any more special than that!

Boo is our "watch" cat. He spends his day making sure everything is "right" with the farm and the animals. I will see him at various times checking on the chickens. He will sit and watch them. No, he is not looking for chicken dinner. Because he has followed me into the chicken pen and house and not bother them. Several times a chicken has gotten out of the pen and he never has killed one. He is like their "guardian cat angel." He used to go over and walk around the ducks. The ducks weren't too thrilled about that! And he spends most of his afternoons in the goat pens. The goats don't seem to mind. Sometimes he goes into the woods to get a chipmunk or mouse which he brings back to me (oh yeah!). Every once in a while, a stray cat will venture onto our property, Boo takes care of him/her pretty quickly.

Boo spends his nights up in our room getting ready for another day of protecting the farm - someone has to do it!

Time Sure Flies!

Where did this year go! Seems like only yesterday that Top Chef was showing up at the Hyde Park Market back in May and here we are . . . only two markets left! OH MY!! What a great year this has been for the markets! Thank you all for your support!!

There is talk of the Anderson running a short winter market from November through mid-December but I don't think a location has been found yet. Not sure if I will participate. It really depends on the cost and where the location will be.

Opie is Leaving Mayberry

I kind of dread the closing of the markets because that brings my son's "ship out" date that much closer. "Ship out" is the Navy's term for him leaving for Boot Camp. We learned last week that his "ship out" date got changed again. Originally, he was supposed to leave February 16, BUT they had several openings in December and decided to put him in one of those spots. So he will be "shipping out" on December 14 instead. I was so hoping he would be here for Christmas. So it looks like Santa will be arriving a couple weeks early at our house this year. Now the big dilemma! What do you give Opie who is going to Boot Camp with only the clothes on his back?? What is going to be even harder is that we will have absolutely NO contact with him for a month!! So no call on the "real" Christmas day. That is going to be tough! You know, sometimes it is not easy being a Mom! But, I am extremely lucky because he will be in the United States. There are a lot of military Moms that have their sons and daughters on foreign soil.

A little bit of this and a little bit of that!

We are back in the 21st century! YEAH! We now have running water and indoor plumbing. Ah the joys of modern conveniences! The leak that was causing so much havoc on our lives was located in middle of the foundation at the front of the house - OH JOY!! Fortunately, for us, it was spraying outwards and not inwards. I can highly recommend Midwestern Plumbing. They did an excellent job fixing the problem!! Very nice people, too. I've also learned a lot more about plumbing and fixing leaks than I EVER cared to know. But what the heck, if this goat thing doesn't work out . . .

This weekend Bobby and I are taking a much needed break and going away on a mini-vacation to Gatlinburg, TN for 4 days. Boy, do I need this!! I think the last time we took a vacation was when Nathan was in the 4th grade and that was 8 or 9 years ago! So we are long overdue! And I need a break badly! Been a really busy year. So I will not be at any of my farmer's markets this weekend, sorry folks!

Speaking of farmer's markets . . . can't believe it is almost time for them to end. Anderson will be closing in two weeks and I will be going to Hyde Park through the end of October. I decided not to do the November market there. The weather in November is so unpredictable and I don't feel like selling soap and eggs in the snow.

Speaking of November . . . craft shows. I am only doing one or two craft shows this year. When I first started doing the shows, the people who ran the shows were very selective about what crafts they allowed and the shows were top-notch shows. I know this will probably sound snobby and I don't mean it to be. But now, they let anyone in just so they fill the spaces and I've seen a lot of junky crafts at the shows. Plus you have a lot of vendors selling similar items. For example, last year at the Milford Show, there was 10 soap vendors - now how are any of us supposed to make any money if there are 9 other vendors to compete with? So I made an "executive" decision and we are going to sit out the craft shows this year (besides most of my customers know how to get in touch with me!).

Pioneer Living

I don't know how they did it. Or it is just we (meaning me!) have gotten so used to modern conveniences.

Yesterday started out as your typical normal day until there was a knock on the door. There was a man standing there from the Water Company. Mmmmm. I know I paid the water bill, so maybe this was just a "social" call - HA!! He had just read the meter and we have been going through 5000 gallons of water a day!!! Darn that teenager!! Wishful thinking . . . the bad news is that we have a leak somewhere. We walked the area where the water line is and saw no signs of water. Then I remember last night down by the chicken pen, we have a pipe that runs from the house and there was water running from it continously. I showed the man and he said that was probably our water. He gave me a phone number to call for a company that could find the leak. Then we needed to call a plumber. I saw $$$.

Bobby called the Leak Company and they showed up that afternoon. Their plan was to pump some type of gas (not gasoline) into our water line and then listen with microphones. And, somehow, they could determine where the leak was. They decided to use the faucet up front by the porch. I told them that we no longer used that and I couldn't remember why. But they wanted to use it anyway. So I went inside and left them alone. Five minutes later, I heard a frantic knock on the front door and basically "Houston, we have a problem!" They accidentally blew a valve or something on the faucet and pretty much flooded my garage. I went into my garage and there was water coming out of the light fixtures, etc. They shut off our water. Told me that we needed to get a plumber to installed a new faucet so they could resume their work, and they left.

So, here we are no water. We did go to Wally World and stock up on water. This has made life VERY interesting. I was thinking this morning that the pioneers somehow managed to live with out running water and indoor plumbing. So, if they can do it, so can I for a day or two. I am just glad that my son is up in Chicago for the weekend or else this could be a real nightmare. He doesn't do well with inconveniences!

Bye, Bye Duckie

The ducks are gone, well, most of the ducks are gone. I did keep 4 of them for me. I use their eggs for making my noodles.

Boy, does it sound quiet here! No loud quacking any more. I am sure the neighbors will appreciate this. Of course, the goats will make up for that!! I did find them a good home, so they didn't end up at the butcher's! YEAH! I really didn't want to do that.

Now the fun part, cleaning up the barn - UGH! I will tackle that after the markets are over in a couple of weeks. That will keep me busy!

I do kind of miss them. Silly, isn't that!

What Hill??

I was "surfing the net" this morning, when I landed on some web page with an ad on top of the webpage about being 50 years old and "over the hill." HUH?? Then it occurred to me that they were talking about me - OH MY!! Then I thought WHAT HILL?? I don't remember any hill. In fact, I am probably more physically active today at 58 than I was at 38. I almost wrote the business who posted that ad and gave them a piece of my mind, but they would probably think I was just being a silly old woman who was over the hill. Oh well!

Still don't remember ever going any hill!