feta cheese and knitting

I can not believe it has been almost 4 months since I posted, well I made my first feta cheese this week using cows milk and marinated on friday we will see how it turns out, it was fairly salty but edible. I marinated in olive oil in different ways, sun dried tomatoes and rosemary, rosemary and basil, rosemary basil and sundried tomatoes and black olives and rosemary and sun dried tomatoes. I crumbled 4 and cubed 1 see if it makes any difference. Can't wait to try. Should have left some plain. Bought some goat milk at split creek and will try making some feta with that and see the difference, will have to pastuerize first. Here is another pictures with some of the last zinnias of the season. The color of the zinnias in the fall are brillant I always plant a bunch late so that they bloom late summer into fall because I love the deep and brillant colors you get. Most zinnias die off end of summer leaves get full of black spots and then turn brown and die so planting a bunch late prolongs the beauty of zinnias and all their colors. a lot of my zinnias also reseed themselves so I get some interesting colors.
I ahve also started on my third pair of socks don't like the yarn I am using the strands split and it is thinner than the other yarns I used for the first 2 pair so the first sock came up smaller even though I added an inch so it would fit I thoughyt so I will have to take out the toe and make longer once I finish with the second and decide what size I need to fit the person it is for. I want to start to make a scarf found a neat but hopefully simple pattern called koigu x's scarf. If and when I make I will post a picture, also need to finish my first sweater and finally found a pattern to make another simple sweater using a bulky Taos yarn I have been collecting can't wait.
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you, I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. John 14:27

Honey, chevre' and hot pepper jelly

I harvested my first honey from my own hive, it was very scary not sure what the bees would do but it went very well and the frames were full of honey in fact when I took it to the honey slinger Mr. benson he was able to get 6 1/2 qts of honey. I could not believe it. Right now it is sitting in the honey bucket waiting for the bubbles to dispeerse and then..... I can put it in jars and tada honey for all my friends. I have already made labels and the nutrition label all I need to do is weigh it and pen that in and figure the servings per jar. i am going to put in pint jars. The labels are like my business card for my goats only I added Honey to the name. and the cheese the first 2 batches i made I didn't flavor but this last batch I did, I tested a few different flavors basil/rosemary, basil/rosemary crushed red pepper, cranberry sunflower and honey, just basil and a roemarty and peppercorn. haven't tasted them yet letting the flavors ripen and last I made hot pepper jelly haven't tasted either made it for a friend who love hot pepper jally ahven't hooked up yet to give it to her to see if she likes it.

Poppies in the fog and baby chicks

Heading up to TN. early last tuesday with the rain and fog these poppies just jumped right out and in bright sunlight i never can take decent pictures of poppies but the morning was perfect and I love the red color of the poppies with grey of the fog. Came home thru the smokies but was to early for the sunset, not enough rain for the small waterfalls don the mountain to be flowing. Wasd a long day up and back to Knoxville. Came home and my goats had gotten out and the neighbor was kind enough to put them in the back yard and close the driveway gate, but didn't know to close my garden gate so the goats just plwoed thru almost everything, got the blueberries and took just about every leaf off the huge climbing rose that had blown over in a high wind we had . ate some of the grass, trambled the daylillies but didn't eat the ones jyst getting ready to bloom or the gardenias which they usually try to devour when they are in the back yard and wzant to reach over the fence to get them, I double fenced so they can no longer reach.

It is rainy today, took 3 goats to the auction 2 bucks, faiths and hatties and snowflakes dow from last year, know I won't get much but not worth hanging on when the doe kids can use the milk and snowflakes kid didn't get bred and has a double teat so I wouldn't get much for her anyway. It has been another buck year for me and with hattie finally giving me a doe but she has a double teat, I seem to get one evry year. I hope I don't have to sell all my goats if the company I work for closes.

Anyway on the way home from dropping the kids ( goat ones that is) at the auction I stopped to cut some wild flowers indigo, daisies, some tiny purple flowers and some oak leaves I also cut something interesting and viney looking which irratated and made my skin itch on my thumb and finger on my left hand and It still is itchy so it wasn't the 7 minute itch plant which usually has bigger leaves. It about drove me nuts for trhe past hour itching finally cleaned it with bleach and warm water and then sprayed with benadryl and it has calmed down some. I should stick to cutting what i know! But here is the picture of the flowers and they are in a vase I made. Had to put a ziploc bag because it leaks

meant to trim it but forgot. Since it was still rainy when I got home the game hen was trying to cover her chicks which have gotten quite big, she has 5 left and you can see the feet of one on the left and the head of another just peeking out from under her on the right besiade the other 2 that you can see clearly, any day they will be on their own but till then she really takes care of them and attacks anything that comes close. I feed them up by the goat feed bins and now the wait down there for me in the morning. Hope she didn't have any roosters for I will be giving them away.

Goats on a hill and new babies

As I type this the goats are calling to be milked, that is one problem if I want peace and quiet in the morning I can't seperate mom and kids and get quiet. So this will be short. My Wyndottes that I got in september and really colorful and this one has already hatched out 5 baby chicks, it must have been 3 weeks ago when I got rid of the last rooster the dominique who kept attacking me well I don't think I have any roosters left and as one can see 5 babies! I also have 5 kittens that need homes . I took Little Bit my jack and my daughters boxer Roxy who is bouncier than tiger from pooh,out in the pasture. The goats looked really good on the hill so I snapped this picture looks like I have a lot of goats with all those kids in the picture. too bad i had sooooooooo.... many bucks again this year. My pasture is looking good and hopefully keeping the goats happy so they don't want to go thru the fence which is barbed wire and rip up their udders. Well just got done with the milking 5 goats and took about 2 hours just remembered I still need to clean up the bucket I feed the bottle kids on. Later I want to go out and pick some daisies I picked a bunch yesterday and Kenny at the feed store saw them and siad they were his moms favorite and asked if he could have them, so i gave them to him. well time to go clean the bucket.

pitcher plant bloom finally starts to open and wham the goats break in and eat half of it....

OK here it is I have been watching this grow from a pea sized bud to a marble size bud for about 6 weeks and then it starts to open ever so slowly and then my goats decide they want it and while I was working in another garden they broke in by climbing on the fence and crushing it and then jumping over the now lowered fence.

I picked up the new bees for Cindys hive and she put them in last night, that was interesting, it was difficult getting them out of the bee box into their new home, we also got a good look at the queen so hopefully we will be able to recognize her when we need too.

Now we don't check them for 2 days, hopefully they will like this queen, not sure what happened to the old one if the killed her or she died. Cindy called later to say when she went to check the bees still left in the ahipping box she picked it up to empty the rest in and she was stung on the hand. We need to get an eppy pen just in case.

It is now strawberry season here and I got my first container of fresh strawberries made 10 8oz jars of freezer jam and sliced a quart for use as a topping on vanilla ice cream, the jam is fantastic, i have had it on toast for dessert last night and beakfast this morning.

what was I Thinking and emotional blackmail

Did I really believe that once Bill and I reached a settlement that he would go away, you know I did, it is done, over but not with him. Well I learned about emotional blackmail, were have I been all these years and no one ever mentioned that what he was doing was emotion blackmail. This has reallt been tough and depressing dealing with him always in the back of mind what will he do next. I am tired of his control over me. Worried over what he will do next. Well enough, it costs me but I have a lawyer now and I can only let him hurt me if I let him.

Smokey Mountain Spring

The waterfalls were running full water just cascading, the trilliums were all over the mountain sides sweeping up the, a carpet of white and pink, plus there were these really neat looking yellow trillium. Yet if you looked up to the top of the mountains the trees were totally bare the greens of spring were slowly sliding up the mountain sides.

Wait to you see the sunsets that day one makes it seem the trees are on fire the other is really beautiful also.

Lizzard Ridge Afghan

This is only showing 8 squares i now have 14 squares done, I love working on this with the waves and the bumps and the colors. I do have to concentrate and really can't do much else or I lose my place very quickly.

I am now a beekeeper

My bees have arrived they are in the hive on the left and today we checked for the queen, we saw a big bee and thought she might be the queen but then we saw another big bee so it might have been a drone, But my bees were working on the 6 frame filling them up, it was so different being around the bees cindy smoked them a little but they flew around and didn't really land on us but we looked to long at the frames and they really started flying around so we smoked them again and covered them up! Maybe we will have honey!