Parentheticals

This last weekend was a fun one. I just got my copy of Galaxy Trucker (if you haven't been following I won it on a board gaming website for answering questions about the game). I have played 3 games so far. It is a fun game. I think that I will bring it to a family dinner some time. We just opened a Gouda. It has a milder flavor than last time, but still isn't quite smooth as a normal gouda. We had a weekend getaway to celebrate our third anniversary, and went to the Brigham city temple dedication. The weekend was fun (once we got into the cabin). My cards that I ordered from SuperiorPOD came in after about a month of waiting. The colors are better, but the Lindauer pictures are still too dark. Perhaps I will lighten them again. We also ripped up the carpet in the front room and got a rug from the DI to replace it. The rug cleaners have the rug right now, and they are supposed to give it back some time, but they have not called us to say that it is re...

 This week Sara has been particularly flirtatious. She definately notices us when we are holding her and talking to her, and she loves to smile and coo at whoever is holding her. She has also started to have a 'fussy o-clock' (Just like Andrea at her age). The only thing that helps her during that time is (as Heather aptly named it) "blanket prison". When she is fussy, but not too fussy she likes to stand up (she is strong enough to support herself (though she has no sense of balance, so she needs to be steadied)). Andrea continues to show her independance from us, and is getting to be more of a hand full daily. This sunday was the primary program, and Andrea decided that she needed to be up on the stand. She walked over to the point just below where the sunbeams were and started trying to jump up. She is good at jumping, but she would have had to jump 4 feet just to get ahold of the edge of the partition. She wouldn't come back of her own accord, so I had to t...

This weekend we made a '4 lb' derby (It must have been less than that, though (It appears that the goat milk makes a less dense curd, and that it loses more whey on pressing)). The curds set up well, and we cut it without incident. What makes a derby a derby is a pseudo cheddaring process that the curds go through. You put them on a cutting board and cover them with a warm towel. Every 15 minutes you turn them over, and eventually they become about the hardness of a hard boiled egg. After you finish that you rip them into chunks and press them for 26 hours at varying levels of pressure, and then you set them out to dry. It turned out pretty good so far. We also made some ricotta out of the whey (and some 'gatorade' out of the whey after the ricotta was removed). While we were making the cheese, we made a quadruple batch of granola as well. Alison bought some mango pineapple that we added. It adds a very tropical flavor. We also took a walk and found...

This last week was a busy one. We decided that we would have a garage sale on Saturday, so we culled all of our books. We ended up with hundreds of books (they wouldn't all fit on a table), some board games,  some of Andrea's clothes (we had been given so many clothes that we hadn't even had a chance to put her in since she grew so fast), some NES games, and some toys. On Thursday I posted some ads online for the sale, and in a few hours someone had called and offered to buy all of the NES games. He came over that night and bought them for $50. Friday someone in Texas somewhere told me online that they would buy  Twilight Imperium  off of me for $50 + shipping, but I told him I didn't want to ship it, so if it didn't sell during the sale then I would mail it to him. The sale started Saturday morning and we had someone show up right away and ask for the NES games (which were all already sold). Some lady bought about 100 books, and got the 'bulk discount'...

We talked to everyone in the general vicinity about the goats, and no-one complained. They are being quieter recently, so I would expect that we can keep them. I called about getting a chicken license, and the lady said that I don't need one cause we are A-1 zoned (so apparently the animal control guy was completely wrong about everything). La-La (the big goat) has decided that she is top quadruped in the yard, and as such she tends to head but Rusty and Clarabell (the small goat). She also likes to jump up on the massive wooden spool that we got for our goats. Clarabell is a younger goat of a smaller breed. she is timid right now, but I expect that she will become bolder soon. She invades the chicken coop and jumps all over everything. A very energetic goat. The chickens broke out of their coop last night and pecked up the yard. It was funny to watch them, and they all went back to the coop when the sun went down, so they know that it is their place. Apparently one of them...

This last week has been memorable to say the least. During the week I spent most of my free time cleaning out the old shed, fixing it up, and building a goat proof fence for the purpose of protecting our garden. In case you have not heard - the thought of getting a goat has moved from being a not so distant future thing to a completed thing. Alison has been watching the classifieds and we found two that we wanted to get. We also were wanting some chickens, but a ward member was had a surplus of four chickens, so we went over to their house and got them. Perhaps I will be uncle Farmer Mike instead of uncle Pirate Mike. Unfortunately everything has not been smooth sailing. We got one of the goats Saturday at 3:00, and by 6:00 we had a visit from the Salt Lake County Animal Control Unit. Apparently someone was bothered by the goat and decided to call the government instead of talking to me. The story that the animal control guy told was that they had received a complaint that...

This weekend we had a ward camp-out. It was pretty fun. Friday we went up to 'big cottonwood canyon' and set up our tents. They provided hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner, and then we talked for a while. I played a 'angry bear' game with the little kids where I was a bear and hid some honey and then went to sleep. They stole my honey, and then I chased them around angrily until someone gave me more honet to appease me. In the evening we brought out marshmallows (apparently we were the only ones in the ward to bring them) and shared them with all of the kids. Since we use only 5 marshmallows total (out of a 1 lb bag) it was a good deal. If we don't find some way of getting rid of marshmallows they just go stale. Sara slept well (Andrea kept us up this time :), and breakfast in the morning was great. We came home before noon, and took a nap. We went over to the Sumption (if that is spelled correctly) residence and picked up some old firewood to add to our pile in t...