Lavender Harvest

Since my lavender has bloomed, I have been waiting for the best morning to harvest it. The info that I have read deems a dry,cool morning to do this.The reason being that the essential oil levels are higher at this point,and they diminish during a hot day. However,our New Hampshire summer is not being very cooperative with this plan. If it's cool,then it's either raining,or everything is wet from the night before.If it's not raining,it's very humid and warm. So,noticing my Provence Lavender was starting to turn a bit brown on some of the blossoms,I had to bite the bullet and do the total opposite of what is considered proper lavender harvesting protocol.
Last night I cut them after supper,and it had been a humid and hot day.Of course, I should've done this before they started getting a bit brown,but I waiting to see if the weather would cooperate. I know the blossoms aren't at their best point,but I am sure I can still work with them.
I picked the best looking ones,filled my basket,and decided to see what would happen.Since I live in a small home, I really don't have the ideal drying area. It has to be a warm,dark space. Well, my living room will not work,because I get eastern morning exposure and southern afternoon exposure. Zach's room has southern and western exposure. Even though he has blinds to help ward off the hot sun in the summer, I can't expect him to keep them down all the time. My bedroom also has southern and western exposure,and I have white,thin curtains-no blinds.
The bathroom is not an ideal place either ( western exposure). As you can see most of my rooms have sunlight for the majority of the day. The attic,while dark,is too hot,and the basement too damp. So that leaves my dining room,or my eating nook,as I refer to it as. My kitchen and this area is one big room,so I don't consider it an actual separate room. It is the space where I have my dining room table and woodstove. It also the only space where I don't have direct sunlight at all. It has northwestern exposure and is the darkest of all my rooms,though it still has some natural light. Instead of hanging the lavender exposed,which would look nice but would lessen the natural oils,I bundled them up,and put a brown paper bag over the blossoms,which I secured with twine. I then hung the two bundles from a pair of candle fixtures that I have. The one thing with putting the bag over the blossoms is that one has to be real careful that the flowers don't rub against the inside of the bag. I got this info from "Country Wisdom and Know How",but they didn't not mention exactly what would happen if the blossoms rubbed against the bag. I assume it has to do with the essential oils breaking down.
After a few weeks,the lavender should be ready to use. The blossoms should be stored in a dark colored container.
Once I get the lavender dried,I am going to try my hand at lavender tea and lemonade,and perhaps lavender sugar. I also want to find the best way to help my headaches.
I do have allergies,which I never had an issue with until I reached my late thirties. While I was preparing the lavender for drying, I noticed my throat was scratchy and my eyes itchy. I hope that this is just because of the freshness of the flowers and not something that will prevent me from using it when it's dried.

When A Door Closes,A Window Opens

Well, I must say that things have been crazy in our little cottage in the country. We have been running around on errands or appointments,and I have not had the time to blog as I should. When I have had a break I try to play catch up with my household chores. Yesterday I took a real break.Zach and I went to Milton Town Beach on Milton Three Ponds with my dear friend Michelle,and her two sons,Ethan ( who is Zach's good bud) and Kyle.The boys swam while we girls sat and chatted. We stayed about three hours.
Michelle and I have known each other for about three years,and we met through Cub Scouts. We were friendly,but only saw each other during scouting events. We did have a mutual friend,Alex. Alex was a great person,full of life and love for the land and her family. She had a huge garden,chickens,had raised pigs,and grew her own flowers -beautiful flowers. She sold the flowers,veggies,and eggs at the roadside stand at her house. Michelle and Alex were very close,and Cub Scouting brought Alex and I together when our Cubmaster stepped down. We had been in the program the longest at that point,and had mostly new people,so we kind of took the wheel together. We got to know each other fairly well,and we were becoming real good friends. Then,two years ago,Alex was diagnosed with Stage Three lung cancer,and she passed away this past April. It was this tragedy in our lives that brought Michelle and I into our friendship.
We would talk on the phone and console each other, voice our fears,and our hopes regarding Alex.This bonded us. During this,we found out more about each other,and I was surprised to discover we had more things in common besides Cub Scouting.
She had animals (chickens,goats,pigs) and a veggie garden. She loved working outside,being organized,and trying to find better ways of doing things. She wanted to be more self sufficient and make things herself. I found that very intriguing. She said that Alex had inspired her. Alex lived her life they way she wanted without worrying about judgement. Now she was doing the same. So, as Alex inspired her,she has inspired me.
We started emailing each other bemoaning about getting our lives organized and losing some weight. We followed FlyLady together and talked about our successes and failures regarding food/exercise for that day. She introduced me to homesteading and organization blogs. That got me going on my continuing quest for self sufficiency and making my household as organized as it can be. I have wanted to be more self sufficient for a long time,and was happily surprised that Michelle felt the same way. That being said, she is much more focused than I,and I admire her for that. When we discussed making our soap, I told her I had done melt and pour,not lye. She said she wanted to do lye,and I said it would be fun to try. Well, I still haven't done it,and she has. I think within a week of that email she had ordered the supplies,and shortly after that,she had made her first batch! She gave me two bars of her Oatmeal Honey soap yesterday,saying that once fall starts,she wants me to come over so we can make myself a batch. She has made her own cheese. She has her own worms for composting. She does not like to buy plastic that is not recyclable,and is always trying to find ways to reduce waste. She buys earth friendly household cleaners,all the while tyring to find if there are homemade solutions to them. We also talked about making our laundry detergent-again, I say it's a great idea and want to do it,she has gone and done it. It makes it sound like I am all talk,no action,doesn't it? I truly admire her do it attitude.
She has also introduced me to Jamie and Claire,the lead characters from Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series. She and Alex enjoyed it,and,knowing my love of history,thought I would enjoy them.They combine historical events with fiction. She was right, I love them,and we are counting down until Sept 22 when the new book comes out. We are hitting the bookstore together. I know our emails will be filled with "Where are you in the book? What did you think of..."
One of things we said to each other was that regardless of how busy we were,we were going to see each other at least every other week. When the boys were in school,it was easier,of course. I would either go to her house,or we would meet at a local restaurant for coffee or tea and a muffin. Now that summer is here,with more chores,and the kids out of school,it's not every other week, but that is OK. We are both busy,but take the time to drop each other a line regularly.( It's one of the first things I do in the morning).Once school starts, our "muffin dates" will resume.
I treasure our friendship and know that it will continue to grow as time goes on. I also know that Alex is looking down at us,smiling with approval.

A Busy Weekend

This weekend was a very busy one. Rick's brother Dale came up with his wood splitter so we had two going,but their friend Scott had to work,so it was only Rick,Brian,and Dale working on the woodpile for a while. Zach was very helpful. Dale would use the chain saw to cut some of the bigger logs,Brian would split them with the splitter,then he would throw the split wood into the trailer on the back of the lawn mower,and Zach would drive it to the other side of the garage,unload the wood,and come back for more. Rick worked on the other pile, but it was very humid and he could only split for a few minutes before having to take a break. I was in the house finishing up housework,until Rick came in and asked if I could help outside.
We had a pile of wood from over a year ago that hadn't been touched. It was already split,but when Rick had his stroke,things were put on hold. So we were finally getting to this older pile,and I was threw all the previously split pieces into the bigger pile. Then I ran the splitter with Rick for a while. We finally got all the wood split,and between the two piles,wound up with about two cords of wood. Now it just needs to be stacked.
With the wood out of the way,we extended out driveway. As I mentioned in a previous post,our neighbors down the road gave us 5 truck loads of chips and dirt mixed together. Our other neighbor,Kelly,came down with his tractor and tried to push all the dirt over so we could not only make the driveway wider,but fill in a dip in our yard where the water collects. He had to come back on Sunday. It was taking a while,because technically,the tractor is really a big riding lawn mower with a plow attachment,and because of all the rain,the dirt was very heavy. Fortunately for us, another neighbor,Bob,happened to pop over. He does a lot of logging and selective cutting,and he had a back hoe. He offered to go get it and push the dirt for us. We (and Kelly) gratefully accepted his offer-it would've taken all day otherwise.So Bob brings the back hoe over and moved the rest of the dirt for us. Kelly graded it so the water would not collect,and then Brian borrowed equipment from Kelly to pack the dirt down. They were finally done around 2:30. Whew! And it was the most humid weather we have had all summer,too,what little summer we have had.
Rick and I kept saying how wonderful it was to have such nice neighbors. We didn't even ask for help,they just offered. This is how it should be-neighbors helping neighbors when they can. We figured between the wood,dirt, wood splitter,backhoe,tamping,and and labor,we saved ourselves at least $2,000,probably more.