Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies

What a great day today! It may be the last time this year with weather in the 60s, and we took advantage of it. Phil did a full bag of mortar, and built up a corner a bit: 55 blocks, and done as the sun went down.

Jadon made chocolate chip cookies, as he does regularly right now. Isaiah noticed I had dried some mint leaves, and he has been eager to try to make mint chocolate chip cookies ever since. Jadon let him have a half batch. They figured out how to cut the mint into pieces (clean out the coffee/herb grinder), and somehow came up with a quantity to add.

They were really good! Happiness for us all.

It was the second fun experiment in two days. I had frozen some small hibiscus calyxes, and made a "cranberry" sauce. Wow! It was perhaps a bit sweet for my taste, but I can't wait until next year to grow more hibiscus: I might make that "cranberry" sauce, with reduced sweetener, weekly.

And speaking of food, a fun party trick: hold your hand up and look at your left pinky. Is it below the top knuckle of your ring finger? According to a local chiropractor, 95% of people with that short pinky have a gluten intolerance.

I checked our family: the boys and I all have borderline pinkies that touch that knuckle, barely below or barely above. Phil's pinky, though, is significantly above that knuckle. (Phil has no wheat issues at all.)

And in other news, Phil and I were discussing our cows yesterday. Phil was looking at our grazing schedule, and realized that if we had had about five cows, we would have had sufficient forage to support them through the winter. Fourteen cows, though, is too much for the land.

And the shortage will perpetuate: if the land, increasing in fertility, could support ten cows next year, assuming we have a perfect birth rate, we could have 23 cows by the end of next year. We're looking at always having to buy hay.

We talked at length: what cows are the priority to keep? Which animals have the best body conformation? Which do we think will have the best production?

Of course, increasing grazing land would be another option. We have a few neighbors we could potentially ask, though that's not a priority at this moment.

So we felt extra blessed today when one of those neighbors stopped by. We chatted about hunting, and the wildlife he's seen up in his deer stand (besides deer, he's seen an enormous bear, a coyote, a bob cat). Suddenly, the neighbor said, "Are you looking for new grazing land? We should sit down and talk about that after hunting season ends!"

Isn't that marvelous!