Good Monday, Friends

Good Monday!!

It's the beginning of a whole new week... filled with possibilities.

If you are, like us, in the midst of a sweltering heat wave...

I hope you are staying indoors and staying cool.

Aside from animal chores, and garden chores in either

the early morning or late evening, 

we are spending much of our time indoors as well.

The thermometer hit 98 degrees this weekend...

and with 97% humidity...

that is oppressively hot!

Just ask these gals...

Or these boys...

It looks like the heat has affected egg-laying, as well...

Sadly, two of our fluffiest chickens perished yesterday in the heat.

They have free run of the farm with lots of shade.

There are many buckets of water available.

We've done everything we can do to help them weather the heat,

and still... it's just too hot.

The only things flourishing in this weather,

are the gardens-

thanks to liberal watering.

(we actually did have a shower Thursday night that gifted us ¾ of an inch)

If only the grass held as much color as the flowers do

right now.

But, alas, it is brown and crunchy.

Yesterday morning, while watering the garden,

I began harvesting potatoes.

You might remember the tub of alien potatoes that I found

in our basement pantry last winter...

with their roots having grown to about 3 feet long.

Well, this bucket of spuds are the "sons of spuds"...

the second generation of last summer's red potatoes.

FREE potatoes!!

Eager to taste these freshly dug taters, 

I made some home-fried potatoes with onions and peppers

to go with our eggs for yesterday's breakfast.

I also, this weekend, made a batch of lemon curd

from this recipe... so easy and so delicious...

and so good as a topping for our homemade yogurt!!

Since the heat drove me indoors,

I decided to make good use of my time.

I rummaged through my vintage fabric and thought it

might be fun to up-cycle a soft, cotton 1950's bedspread

into this pinafore.

Naturally, it needed it's own matching face mask!

It is now in my BeeHavenAcres Etsy shop.

Listing this item made me realize that I need to get busy

sewing again!

I do have a few things that I am working on... more on that later.

Since it looks like face masks are going to be part of our life

for the foreseeable future, I decided to make a bunch of them.

It's helpful to keep some in the car.

Finally, after two weeks, I feel like I have finally turned the 

corner with respect to my upper respiratory infection.

I did get a Covid-19 test which was negative.

Interestingly, though, it took 8 days to get the results...

which is truly problematic... especially if it had been positive.

It's a weird time to have a cough...

especially when in the grocery store.

I almost feel like I need to wear a sign... Not Covid Positive!

Because our infrastructure is lacking with regards to 

dealing with this virus,

it is even more important that we all wear masks when in public.

I hope that I am preaching to the choir... and that we are all on the same 

page with respect to this issue.

Masks are not an affront to our personal freedom...

they are helping to keep us safe...

and allowing for the survival of our economy.

😷

[exits soapbox]

PS:  I was asked, in last week's comments, whether our solar energy
covers our air conditioning needs.
Yes.
When our system was designed, the size of it depended upon our normal
electricity needs... and air conditioning was factored into that.
In actuality, we are not big users of air conditioning.
The wonderful thing about log homes is the fact that they
hold on to the cool inside, especially if drapes or blinds are used
in the sunniest of windows.
We have room darkening drapes that we can close on the sunny
side of the house, so that helps to keep us cool during the daytime.
Now that temperatures are so high, and do not cool down significantly
at night, we are using the air conditioning.
When this heatwave is over, we will go back to having windows open
once again.