(I’ve combined the wonderful idea of a One Sentence Journal, where you commit to writing just one sentence about each day, and a Gratitude journal, where you make a short – or long – list of things that you’re grateful for each day.)

It seems, though, that in my busy-ness, I have been stressing moderately about getting everything done. But, thinking about the Gratitude portion of my journal has made me realize that I have not been grateful for what we have gotten done! (Seems to me I’ve been hard on my husband about being hard on himself for not getting enough done, too. Double anti-gratitude whammy.)

In my experience, the less gratitude I show about getting things done, the less I accomplish.

So, in the name of being prepared to deliver food to all those we’ve committed to, here is an expanded and public entry to my Gratitude Journal:

• All the oats and barley are planted. Shea and Daddy had a great time planting together.
• I actually got to run the tractor for a few hours for the first time since our son was born! (From this I realized why John arrives from his hours of solitary tractor work in such a good mood. Once or twice, as I pulled the cultivator from the ground to start another row, I wondered how much fun John was having trying to run the seed cleaning set up while entertaining our 2 1/2 year old. Mostly, I enjoyed the relative silence of the diesel tractor, though. )
• Our laying hens are up to speed, laying almost 40 eggs per day.
• Our broiler chicks have survived in less than perfect housing to start loosing feathers and start looking far less cute than when they arrived.
• Our sheep are so happy with their new barn that they stay in it even when they could go out!! (This is partly because the pasture fencing is about a day away from being ready. The grass was ready last week but the containment devices will be ‘a go’ this weekend.)
• Our vegetable garden, which somehow grew from ‘Enough salad greens and beets to take for dinner each night’ into ‘Please don’t let all of this be ripe at the same time!’, is 75% planted and looks pretty darn good. We may even be able to afford a wheel hoe before too long to make the maintenance of a large garden easier.
• The pole peas that the kids planted are coming up and Shea, who is 2 1/2, started jumping up and down, yelling: “Mom! Come see! Come see!” When he noticed them poking their light green heads out of the dirt.
• I finally might have found a Canadian source of Fertrell products so we can get our poor chickens on to some decent food that we can actually afford to give to them. (Around here, you’d have to charge about $7 per dozen eggs if organic feed costs were to be recouped.)
• I have relaxed my sense of what is important enough that the foot high lawn in front of the house is not bothering me.
• Yeah for being hicks! My sense of what is ‘too hick’ has also been relaxed. Not only do we have a truck cap sitting in the yard, but our 7 week old Barred Rock laying hens live in it surrounded by a temporary fence! (Photo potentially to come, though actually adding this task to my to-do list seems just a tad counter productive, no?)

And, last but not least, I am grateful that I forced myself to take the time to write here. Because, whether or not people read it; whether or not this blog brings any of our customers more insight into how their food is raised and by whom; whether or not people agree with all I write, the writing of it is worth the effort. Putting my thoughts into written – okay, typed – words is soothing like nothing else that I do. And so, thanks to me, for taking the time to do something that, though it might be solely for my own good, is absolutely worth it.

Happy Eating!

Check out this recipe.  It comes from one Luisa, lovely Italian woman who seems to know how to make rack of lamb into the delectable, luxurious dish it is meant to be.  Follow these instructions and add friends liberally.

Luisa’s Marinated Lamb for the Barbecue:  (as it came to me via email)

Throw 3 cloves of chopped garlic in a big bowl, add the juice of  3-4 lemon (and then cut them into pieces and throw them in the marinade as well), add fresh mint leaves, rosemary leaves (3 spoon), parsley (1 spoon), extra vergin olive oil (1 cup), red wine Vinegar (1 cup1/2) ground black pepper (1 spoon) and an entire red hot chilli pepper crushed into small pieces. Add water and stir. Put the lamb in the bowl and make sure the lamb is being sunken, cover with cling wrap and put in the fridge for 12 hours or simply the night before the consuption.

If you like, once you cook the lamb you can put some of the marinade in a bowl on the table and dip the lamb into it.
Is delicious!

There you have the recipe.  I didn’t make any changes and don’t really know if we’re talking teaspoons or tablespoons but, hey, it’s a marinade.  Make it so that it tastes good to you!

I have yet to try this but you can bet it will be first on my ‘to bbq’ list for the summer.

Doesn’t it look like summer?