the best buns ever put in my mouth

What day is it??!
i think it's almost december.
(the christmas music is everywhere!)

Joel has been jobless for one month now.   he's really digging it.  he's really good at it, too.  I'm so happy for, and proud of him!  he definitely keeps busy still.  he enjoys his projects.

He and Andy finished their goat shelter on Sunday.  The following day he helped Lou begin to go through and clean out his giant pole barn/shed.  Yesterday those two used more pallets to cut and screw together a feeding apparatus for the goats.  It holds their hay up off the ground and they LOVE IT.  Lou said goats don't usually eat off the ground, they don't like it.  So he made something more to their goaty liking, and now they're eating it up like it's about to go out of style.  This afternoon, Andy asked Joel if he'd be up for putting together one more goat shelter.

The guys don't want us to leave, ever.  it's so funny!  we spend a bit of time alone in the camper in the evening sometimes, but for the most part, we all hang out a lot, work on stuff, play with the kids, and eat most meals together, like a family.  it's just so cute.  and they want us to stay, if not forever, then just another 6 months.  HAHA   -i don't think we're gonna last that long.
it will be something to leave here, that's for sure.  off into the great unknown!  more on our own.  we look forward to it.  we'll stay with the guys for maybe another week or so.? ?   it has been such a comfortable and convenient blessing to hang out here.  in this warmer than MN weather, we've been afforded perfect time to get all set up, and ready to hit the road to off-grid places.   I am eager to get out hiking, or finally take our bikes out from the back of the truck, and just get more exercise in general.  Other than taking an occasional waltz through the woods, the farmstead has been very much for hammocking, reading by the fire, and taking it easy, for me anyway, HEE HEE! (lovin' it.)

This last week we've been decorating and arranging inside the camper.  We have most of our pictures hung up, as well as our l.e.d. string lights, which we'll probably run off our solar power in the evenings.  The solar panels are working well.  It still blows me away that Joel and his brother assembled all these wires and panels and the batteries together.  It is a sight to behold!  Our own internet connection is up and running now too.  We have mifi, a wiboost, and an antenna.  Joel drilled some holes to run the cable into the camper, then i helped him tie it off all along the underside of the RV, then UP the ladder on the back, where we have a pole attached to it.  The antennea is at the top of the pole, which we'll take on and off, depending on if we are driving.  the mifi and wiboost gadgets are inside.  We will probably also run the wiboost system off our solar panels.

bath day for the camper!

We gave the camper a bath for the first time, on one of our recent sunny, 75 degree days- that was a HOOT!  i had shorts on, both of us were in our bare feet, walking around, carefully, all over the rooftop-  Joel scrubbed while i sprayed.  then we did the sides.  it took us about an hour.  it was a lot of fun!  we both enjoyed seeing it brighten up, and it just felt great to give it all that TLC.  We dumped our tanks for the first time, too.  that went fine.

Today Joel is creating a little desk for in the truck!  It'll attach from the passenger side dash area and fold down, so we can use the laptop and be on the interwebs while we're cruisin' down the road.  (When we're not in the camper using internet, we can use our gadget in the truck as we drive.)   😄   Neato!

it's really looking now like ALL SYSTEMS GO.
altho, baby bunnies are coming soon!  the mommas are due in the next 10ish days.  i have never seen newborn rabbits before.  Andy regularly handled and pet many of them from the last batch.  He's encouraged me to take one down the road with us!  (as well as CHICKENS.  on or in a camper??!!  how could we do that.  HAha!  there's a way.)  it's tempting.  but not yet.  so i am loving up all the ones here while i can before we go.


So, where are we gonna go from here?   I've had snowboarding so hot on my brain, I've been looking into places to park in New Mexico.
but for various reasons, including that fact that, as we take our lives more day by day, our desires and ideas shift often, and we are both feeling pulled to be in Texas for a while.  we have to square away some legal-y things, there is a LOT of free camping land down there, AND hot springs are calling us!  I am really excited to sit my bod in some naturally hot mineral waters again.  i've been to a slew of them out westerly, and it was amazing fun.  i'm ready for more.  snowboarding may very well wait until Flagstaff.  (whenever that is?!)

sourdough "mother"

Mmmm, what else... SOURDOUGH baking.  we've been baking, a LOT.  now that joel isn't at a desk job everyday, he's going to town with trying new sourdough recipes.  he's recently fallen in love with dinner rolls.  he made a huge batch of chocolate chip cookies the day before the guys came back home from the holiday and they're pretty much gone already.   tonight he made a blackberry cobbler with berries we had in our freezer, from his mom's patch outside their house.  and last week he made buns for our Thanksgiving hamburgers.  they turned out good.  but yesterday he asked if i would kindly make another batch, while he continued to help Lou in the shed, so we could have them ready in time for dinner.
i was hesitant.  sometimes i don't get a very good rise to happen and i didn't want them to flop!  i realized how i simply had little faith in myself.  but that's how ya get better with sourdough things- just keep doing it and ya figure out the right ratios as you go.  every batch is different, depending on the thickness of your mom.
SO- i did it.  i made the hamburger buns.  i forgot to take a picture.  that's what happens when HEAVEN WASHES OVER YOU!!!  and Immediacy kicks in.
they were AMAZEBALLS!!!!!!!!!!!   they were, no kidding, the best buns i've ever put into my mouth.  and i could make various silly jokes from here about great-tasting buns in my mouth, but i won't--  i'm serious--  my grandmother's were comparable.  but i think mine may had been better!!    they had incredible flavor.  they were nice and fluffy.  oh my gosh- the flavor.   WHOA.  sourdough is so fun.  baking with yeast from grabbed out of the air is, rather than adding it from a packet, is just so much fun!

i finished reading a book called Big Magic, written by the Eat, pray, love author.   a sweet friend of mine gave it to me the day before we moved out of the city.  it was a fun read.  Gonna pass it to a Free Little Library when we leave here.  and now Andy suggested one my way- some science fiction.  I'm rather new to this genre as far as books go  (does Stranger in a Strange Land count?  that was so long ago.) and i am all game.  i'm off on new adventures in all sorts of ways!

We've been in with the goats more.  The slender and tiny, deerlike Adora was actually PAWING at and trying to climb up on me the other day!  Andy said "yeah, she's like that.  she's like a puppy.".  She nuzzles and licks, and sniffs at my ears when i hang out squatted down on the ground.  It totally tickles.   And now 9 times out of 10, if we go inside for a while and come back out later, all 4 of them come galloping and running over to us.  It's hilarious!  I giggle about them so much every day.  A couple of them talk A LOT, and i'll go back and forth with them sometimes.  I have my two greatest goat pictures yet to leave you with.  such great timing.   ...to capture that sweet spot, to a really great picture.  EVERYTHING is about timing, really.  everything in life is a rendezvous... the merging of an incomprehensible amount of different factors, into this precious point in space and time, where we are choosing to hold our focus.

That smiley, zen smirk just takes the cake!
Ah, GOATS.

AAah, YOU.

We are rendevousing, you and I, together right now.
I do hope you're enjoying it  :)     

    ~TALLY HO

Adora