School has started, and now the farm is more of a place to sleep than a place to live. It is exhilarating and exhausting to try and inspire 12 and 13-year-olds to be excited about grammar. We’ve been learning to excavate the simple subject and simple predicate from sentences. Several times a day I repeat: Is is a verb!
My evening energy level is low. There has been no running – not even on the treadmill. In the morning I hustle to milk, then feed the milk to the chickens. In the evenings I’ve been letting my growing calves nurse the cows dry while I throw food to the rest of the critters. Then it’s time for dinner. And once I sit down I find I have no desire to be on my feet one second longer. The result? An hour or so in bed playing Words with Friends (a new addiction) and a few more chapters of Anna Karenina. Then sleep.
My outdoor garden has given up the ghost. After the long, hot, dry summer, I decided to forego any attempts at a fall garden. I’m glad I did. Instead, I brought my gardening indoors and grew a flat of microgreens from a hydroponic kit I ordered at www.growmicrogreens.com. My first harvest was yesterday. The greens are fantastic – spicy and fresh and full of flavor. Looks like we have salad for the week.
My first harvest.
The rest of this weekend will be spent catching up: make butter from the milk in the fridge, whip up a batch of yogurt for my evening smoothie, and make a big stockpot of beef and vegetable soup to get us through the week. Already a loaf of fresh bread has made its way from the oven.
Fresh from the oven.
Oh, and with a lot of luck, I’ll finish the shawl that’s on the rented loom that should have been returned a week ago.
Waiting for Thoreau 
Even when you’re pooped and played out you still accomplish more than I do fully rested (?) and no adolescents to deal with, either! I am shamed. I love the blog and enjoy checking in to see what’s new with you.