Happily, we now have a stove - with oven! - and refrigerator! I'm thrilled that I can finally start storing cold foods, and baking (in very small batches, the oven is tiny) without traveling. My mom has left me, she's making the drive back home today, with the rest of the family, and she's parked her trailer on my land. So until the kitchen is built and the wood cook stove installed, we have a trailer-sized propane oven & fridge. I'm excited to be able to can easily now, especially as our cucumbers, zucchini, and tomatoes are all starting to come in!

Actually, I'm just excited to get back to the land. Our week away, at a "cabin" on a lake has been fun. And vacationing with internet access, television, hot water, and family has been wonderful, but I'm ready for my life again. I'm looking forward to cleaning and rearranging the yurt to accomedate the huge quantities of food my parents brought up, and to accomedate my new thoughts on How Our Home Should Look - inspired by recent rereading of Tolstoy. I'm hoping to (finally) paint and paper the outhouse, plant some fall crops in rows we've recently cleared of crops that have passed; and I'm certainly going to spend a lot of tim enjoying my daughter.