Tuesday, July 11/17 - Britain, here we come...

It was a nice break after our very busy catering weekend. Only had to bake 36 dozen cookies last Tuesday, no really, nothing too taxing at all! Another 36 dozen this week before I head off on holidays as well as another potential customer in the works. No rest for the wicked but it's all good!

This week I'm trying to clear up some last minute things before I leave for Toronto bright and early on Saturday morning. After spending the weekend in Guelph, James and I will be off to Manchester, England on Sunday evening.



 We'll arrive there on Sunday morning and have 4 days to tour around Liverpool area before heading up to Scotland.

James is ever such a good sport to be willing to indulge me all that time to revel in the past. But it will be his turn when we're touring ruins in the Scottish highlands and he enjoys reveling in their past. 

Posts the next two weeks will likely just be text as all I'll have with me will be my Ipad, but I'll do what I can to keep you up to date on our whereabouts. 

Some sort of sad news this week. Lloyd has made the decision to sell the goats and chickens. The amount of time required for their care each day is significant as well as the cost of keeping them. We enjoy the milk from them and the resulting cheese making but we aren't permitted to sell any of it so it's really an exercise in futility. Now that we're busy with our Wee kitchen it just makes sense. Besides, we're not getting any younger either. He really wanted to have goats when he moved here but now he's had that experience and he feels it's time to move on to explore other options.

There are numerous Amish families that have moved here from Ontario over the past couple of years.

Lloyd's gotten to know one of the farmers and they have goats already. They've made a deal with Lloyd to take all 9 of them. They will be leaving later today. I'm sad to see them go, especially Eddie and certainly little Barney. But I know they will be well looked after. Besides one branch of the family has 14 kids, so I suspect Barney may be quite the pet for them. 

The chickens have been gone now for a couple of weeks. We could have sold 100 chickens if we'd had them. Lots of folks looking for healthy laying hens. The two hours per day we spend now on animal care and milk and egg processing, will free up time for other pursuits.  I might actually get my yard cleaned up and into some kind of order. That would be really nice.

I know at least one reader who will miss the goat photos,( sorry about that Mike.)
We'll have to come up with something else to peak his interest from time to time.


Remember back a few weeks ago when I was going to try planting a garden in wooden pallets? One of the challenges has been keeping on top of the weeds between the pallets. No time lately to get to that so this week I just took the trimmer and cut down everything in between the pallets. As for the plants inside the pallets, they are doing not too badly. We badly need some rain and I haven't been very diligent about getting out there and watering (okay, I haven't gotten out there at all). But in spite of my apparent neglect, I still have a few things growing - lettuce, spinach, swiss chard, radishes, carrots, one tiny green tomato on one of the tomato plants...  but if we get rain over the next little while, it should be in great shape. It will be interesting to see it in two weeks when I get back.