Breakfast

Christ is Risen!  Break fast...yes, it's time.  Kulich with cheese pascha and tea for breakfast, and an origami Panda on the side.  Our oldest daughter is living with my sister and they sent a package that arrived yesterday.  Origami paper and googly eyes, ginger peach rooibos tea, lemon chocolate,  4 rolls of washi tape, a few books, butterfly stickers, boots for the boys and more...

Yesterday was Bright Monday, there was a cross procession after liturgy.  Pascha was excellent. The boys were good, both held candles during the all night service.  George fell asleep in the carrier and Paul stayed awake the whole time.  Saturday was my husband's birthday.  I made vegan carrot cake muffins to celebrate.  Friday, we went to the cemetery and lit a candle at my father's grave before the lamentations service.

Kulich with fresh lemon icing and almonds + raisins atop.  I made cheese pascha using the milk from our cow.  I followed this recipe, to keep the cheese as raw as possible and only cook the eggs, sugar and cream.  A local friend placed a bulk order of vanilla beans to split with others and I was glad to scrape the black middle out of one to add to the sweet cheese.  I will make an extract with the others, soaking them in rum.

I made eggs benedict for Sunday brunch sprinkled with smoked paprika.

Our lambs, cow, calf, kittens and chickens are all well.  Captain has been walking, climbed out of his bin and with the other lambs, even running along with them. We got 2 bunnies!

We just bought this Golden book Home for a Bunny and thought having a white and brown one just like the story was a good idea.  Almost all the snow melted.  It was 70 yesterday. 

Pascha bell ringing!

The monastery lets anyone go and ring the bells on Pascha!  It was such a joy, but quite loud even though we all had ear protection.

Baking with saffron

I made a 3rd batch of kulich today. In this batch, I used saffron and added it to the warm milk and yeast mixture.  Such a pretty golden dough!  Likely the free range eggs were another factor in the rich color.  I used golden and regular raisins.  There are many seminarians who have helped and befriended us and I want to share with them, to thank them.  I'll put lemon icing on top.

I helped my husband milk the cow, Bella, this morning, then took that milk, strained it through linen and am making more cheese.  I've been warming the milk up and letting it clabber, gathering it in muslin and letting it drain for a simple farmer's cheese.  

All these preparations for Pascha!

I plan to hard boil eggs, peel them and soak them in beet juice, like this, isn't that gorgeous? I got a round of Guggisberg baby swiss (onlyn$3.60/pound!) and will need some thin crackers.  I'm writing a menu, for brunch, and also dinner. Ham, meatballs, bacon, mashed potatoes, Olivier salad, kulich with cheese Pascha.  Tea.  Eggs Benedict also, maybe??

It snowed about 12 inches!  Our elevation is 1,390 ft. here.  I think that's why we got so much, seems that others got more rain.

Last night a friend at church gave me these mittens as a gift!  On Lazarus Saturday, she greeted me with "many years" as the Bible passage read aloud was of the brother of Martha and Mary, risen by Jesus Christ. I told her it was my mini namesday!  And now, the new snowfall, timely and useful.

We baked Lazarakia on Friday!  I started a punch needle project.  I've been working on a shawl for my niece who lives in Canada.  I had to go to the store to get more yarn and saw the punch needle start kit on sale for $4.99 so got that!

We visited my father's grave last Wed. Little purple and white crocuses had just emerged!  Looking at each new day, surprises and stability.
Reality is, these days we're eating nuts, vegetable + bean soup, carrots + cucumbers with hummus, peanut butter + jam sandwiches. And looking forward to Pascha!

His name is Captain

We named all the lambs.  Last week, I listed all their names.  This one at top is Captain Courageous, as he's made it through a struggle and never been able to walk.  He was born March 25th, he was doing so well 8-9 days ago and would stand unassisted!  However, he seemed to have a fever last week and regressed, can't stand again, didn't want to drink the milk bottle, really seemed depressed and I read that can happen with sheep.  We just call him "Captain" and give him a lot of extra love and care, he spends time with the other lambs, but is inside our home at night.  My husband finished an area with chicken wire over the cattle fence to make it more secure, so we don't have any runaways!  

You can see Ferdinand our calf, who is 6 weeks old today, sitting in the background.  He is in his own fenced in area, so mama cow, Bella, can have a break, she is in the pasture just beyond. Yesterday it was 60 F and sunny.  Today, it's 58.  Sunday we had some snow, though.  

One hen flew to the top of the chicken coop!  The rooster has been pretty aggressive to the boys recently.  He just may become chicken soup.  They are about 7 months old now.  We're getting about 2 dozen eggs a day now.  We are selling them for $3/dozen as we've had to buy a lot of chicken feed to get through the winter.  Everyday now, they forage through our fields and scratch eating up new greens starting to grow.

We went to the Farmer's Museum amd saw the sheep shearing.  Next year we'll shear our lambs who will be much bigger and have black and white fleece to spin into yarn!

Good fences

Cedar logs are ready to go into the ground for our new fence. Rob and Jonathan, our neighbor, have been putting cedar fence posts in this week.  I've been thinking about that 1914 poem by Robert Frost Mending Wall.  They are referring to a stone wall, which would be very nice to have... The line from the poem that you've heard so often is, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Paul's Godfather from Massachusetts was here last week.  We saw a lot of old friends and made some new ones at church. 

George is feeding the lamb who couldn't walk, he can now stand unassisted!  We got 3 more lambs this past Saturday.  So, that's 6 in all.  3 ewes and 3 rams.  We've named each one! Their names are all going to start with the letter C:  Cookie, Cream, Custard, Chip (who is the newest and tiny, 1 of triplets), Captain + Colonel (pronounced "Kernel" who is mostly black). Feeding them every 4 to 6 hours, lack of sleep due to the time it takes to measure the right about of milk replacer and warm water for each one...the night feeds are the hardest for me. These days are busy.  

I baked more kulich yesterday, with golden raisins.  We do our home school lessons in kitchen at the table, while I'm chopping, baking or doing dishes.  Writing verses and this past week "The Lord's Prayer."  Paul has been adding numbers for a total greater than 10, but less than 20.  We also started to use www.xtramath.org in January, which is great, helping with speed, and just a few minutes each day.

It is sunny and warmed up to 53 F so I thought I'd put the lambs in the small fence where we put the calf during the day.  Three of them escaped, thankfully we got them, they were huddled behind the other neighbors shed.  So, that's why a good fence is necessary!