Sigh.

Well, it has been a busy two days. Pickled some and dehydrated some yesterday, then helped Mike load the pickup with not one but two loads of trash for the dump (Wednesday is Town Dump Day). Then I went to a meeting in Valentine; while I was there I got a library card.

Today I started in immediately this morning, canning the last of the pickles and making more bread. Today's bread was light and moist and poufy, rising pretty quickly and prettily, and came out with a flaky crust and a soft interior. I made noodles to go under the last of the beef stew for lunch. Then after lunch I sat down to rest.

20 minutes later my right shoulder that had been grumbling since the dump trips finally, truly started to ache. Sigh. So I helped Mike tarp the wood pile ( it is supposed to rain tonite) and put everything away. We walked the yard with the puppies and talked about what we were going to do with the stuff around his shop, still piled on the North side.

Barb came up and told us that there was frost at their ranch this morning in the valley. Frost already! We didn't get any here - their ranch straddles the SD line north of us. But still....
I checked on the sunflowers; they are doing well and in two more weeks I should have scads of seeds. As long as we don't get a killing frost they should be OK.

I stll have to clean the kitchen ( I am a messy pickler and baker!) and grind the dehydrated tomaotes into powder. When it rains tomorrow I should have everything pretty much done and can look at the book I got from the library. It goes deeply into the plants, soil makeup, and water resources around here. I need to have an idea of the different things I need to look at - like soil acidity/alkalinity, etc - and figure out how to deal with the 'noxious weeds' here. I'd rather starve them out than try to fight them continually!

So tomorrow I can rest this silly shoulder. Maybe!